On the Subject of DirectX 10

Sophie Marceau

Playing the superb Crysis demo has reminded me that DirectX 10 exists. It's easy to forget, what with it being Vista-only. I recall prior to Vista's release, our friends the forum idiots were declaring DX10 would be the Saviour of PC gaming and "OMG if it looks this good in DX9, DX10 will be amazing!!!!111!1". Ignorant bollocks, of course.
Predictably, all we've seen in practice are a few gimmicky graphical flourishes in the handful of games that support DX10. Not to mention the main feature of the API, increased graphics pipeline efficiency, hasn't resulted in effortless performance gains. In fact thanks to Vista being a fat version of XP games generally run slower.
I haven't actually tried Crysis under Vista yet, on account of Creative's shitty X-Fi drivers rendering my sound card useless and also because I simply can't be arsed. I believe the "Very High" graphics settings are only available under DX10, but given that my 8800GTX can barely scrape by on "High" I'm not particularly tempted to push it any further.

On the Subject of Crysis

Denise Milani

It's terribly unfashionable to be enthusiastic about a big-name game these days. Fortunately I don't give a rat's arse what all the smug, self-righteous, needlessly contrary kiddie-fiddlers think and I can say without hesitation that on the basis of the recently-released SP demo, Crysis is the dog's bollocks.
If only there was a graphics card on earth that could run it maxed-out, which brings us to the subject of optimisation. Just as with the Bioshock widescreen fiasco, Crysis is bringing out the armchair pundits claiming that Crytek have done a poor job of optimisation because the demo doesn't run at a million fps on their antiquated, bargain-basement systems. If that was true, every monkey with a knocked-off copy of Visual Studio would be banging out games that look as rich and pretty as Crysis, but of course they're not. This game is breaking new ground in visual complexity and that comes at a hefty performance cost. If you can't afford a computer that can at least run it in a playable form that's not Crytek's fault, it's yours for being a talentless, penniless wastrel.
The other classic I've noticed on forums is the ever-popular "the release version will be optimised" suggestion. Bless. As if Crytek have purposely coded the engine to be slow, and will hit a magic optimisation switch before the retail game goes gold and suddenly it will run ten times faster. Of course that never happens, and you can be sure that the release version will be 99% identical to the demo in terms of performance. Maybe future patches, and more likely revised graphics drivers, will squeeze out a little more but if you think your piece-of-shit, circa 1999 graphics card will ever do this game justice then you're only fooling yourself.

More on the Subject of Wide Screen

The rule for games that the choice of wide screen cropping is ultimately the decision of the game developers does not apply to television. While a game engine is potentially capable of rendering the image at any given resolution, TV isn't.
If only tv service providers and/or channel operators could all figure out how to properly broadcast wide screen content, especially when it's HD.
Having wide screen content encoded in a letterboxed format on DVDs is bad enough. Obviously all wide screen DVD content should be encoded as anamorphic.
But what's even worse is when wide screen HDTV content is scaled down both horizontally and vertically so that it appears letterboxed on a 4:3 set, but on a proper wide screen it looks like some retarded picture-in-picture mode. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK are they thinking?

Below is a 16:9 image. This is what it should look like on my wide screen TV.
Poor people with 4:3 sets should either see a horizontally-cropped image:
or a scaled-down, letterboxed image:
The following, however, is a fucking abomination. In NO circumstances should wide screen programs be broadcast in this format:

On the Subject of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Aria Giovanni

It's no secret that Vanguard has had it's share of drama in it's relatively short life. Wildly optimistic pre-launch claims from head-in-the-clouds supremo Brad McQuaid did little to endear Sigil to players once the game was realeased, "6 months" too early, in a state that was barely recognisable as a game. Loyal players stuck with it in the hope that some of the formidable potential would eventually be realised.
Sadly, very little of any consequence has actually changed since release. There have been sporadic and much-needed performance improvements. There's the usual round of class nerfing every so often (a subject to which I suspect I will return in the future).
Vanguard had a lot going for it. The epic sense of freedom and scale is unmatched. Despite a breathtakingly shoddy engine there are some awe-inspiring environments.
I say "had" because with every passing day it seems increasingly unlikely that SOE will be able to pull Vanguard back from the looming abyss. In fact it seems increasingly unlikely that SOE are interested in even trying. Another round of staff cuts and a relocation are currently doing little to inspire confidence in the future.
There were things I loved about Vanguard, and things I loathed. The often stunning scenery vs. the horrendously poor interface. The sense that, for once, the game world wasn't surrounded by strategically-placed, impassable mountains forcing you to take a specific path vs. some of the buggiest, grind-iest, most tedious quests I've ever had the misfortune to undertake.
To my mind the core of Vanguard's struggle was the piss-poor engine. It's one thing to have astronomical hardware requirements, and the game's artwork does often manage to shine, but awful texture filtering, lack of anti-aliasing and the worst water shading I've seen in a game in many years make you wonder what all the horsepower is being used for. While competing MMOs like LotRO were releasing sizable expansions soon after launch, Vanguard's developers are still struggling with fundamental memory issues that have existed since beta, and which have put the brakes on any serious content development. Player after player hits the level cap, and is faced with no compelling end-game content. That's what will finally kill the game. That, and the staggeringly bad reputation the game has managed to achieve.
It's sad, because the core "feel" of the game hints at something special. It's frustrating because you know under more positive circumstances (and with software devs who actually knew what the hell they were doing) it could have been the connoisseur's choice of MMO. Bad tech and misplaced, old-fashioned mechanics will prohibit Vanguard from achieving any sort of "next-gen" status.
The tragedy is, while Vanguard attempted to be different it's potential failure will only serve to fuel development of cheap and cheerful WoW clones. I'm sure Conan's extended release delay is being used to make the game as casual-friendly as possible in an attempt to avoid Vanguard's fate.

On the Subject of Unreal Tournament 3

Monica Bellucci

Why the bastard hell does the bastard thing crash so much? In between crashes it's chock full of old-school UT goodness, only to dump me to desktop halfway through every damned match.
I would like to be defending it's honour in the face of impending onslaught from the clueless retards who are falling over themselves to be ever so nonchalant and smug and criticise it simply because they think they're some sort of FPS experts and have seen everything done better somewhere else. And oh no! It doesn't look as "realistic" as CoD4! It's Unreal Tournament you fucking idiots. It's not supposed to be realistic. Not that bunny-hopping around in some FPS will ever really be like having Johnny Foreigner shooting real bullets at your real body until you're really dead.
Anyway I know it's a beta. Or a demo. Or a beta demo. And I already have it pre-ordered.

On the Subject of Wide Screen

Salma Hayek

Admittedly this is somewhat overdue, but with the recent release of the Unreal Tournament 3 Beta/Demo I am once again seeing the hordes of ignorant little fools crawl out from under their uninformed, reactionary rocks.
The issue is widescreen and specifically Bioshock's notoriously divisive implementation. Of course by "divisive" I mean the division between people who have a solid grasp of camera geometry, and drooling half-wits who will believe any bullshit that a bunch of educationally sub-normal yahoos choose to spew onto web forums.
Quite simply, a wide screen monitor does not imply a wider field of view.
If you understood that assertion, there is little reason for you to continue reading. For anyone else, let me try and put it into simple terms that even you can grasp.
Firstly, a hypothetical situation. That means pretend, in case I had lost you already. Like when you pretend to have the faintest idea what's going on in the big scary world around you.
Imagine you have two monitors. One is a wide screen monitor and the other is a traditional shape. Imagine that if you took a tape measure and measured from one side of the screen to the other that both monitors are the same width. Yes, that's right, the wide screen monitor wouldn't be as tall, would it? Very clever. But that's beside the point. Now imagine that you're playing the same game on both monitors. Which monitor should let you have a wider field of view? Which monitor should let you see a wider view of the game world? Remember, the monitors are the same width. Consider that if the wide screen monitor offered a wider field of view, objects would appear smaller on that monitor. Think about it.
The number of people who instinctively believe that because they (or, more likely, their parents) bought a fancy pants wide screen monitor that they are for some unfathomable reason entitled to see more of the game world, is staggering. If they can't see more of the game world or if, god forbid, they actually see less because the picture is cropped vertically, then they think they are somehow being short-changed by the game designers.
A question to ask yourself: do you think that modern game developers use wide screen monitors? The correct answer is, of course, "yes". Because wide screen monitors are no longer exclusive or special, in the same way that you're not special for having one. So the game developers are seeing the exact same cropping and field of view that you are, and they are in a much better position to judge what is "correct" than you are, because it's their game. Just because you read that it's wrong on some forum, or because another game did it differently doesn't make it wrong. What the fuck do you know? Getting all indignant because you believe you know better than the game designers when in fact you are much too stupid to ever be capable of developing a game yourself.
Of course there are other whiny, smug little arses who like to point out that some people are sensitive to the field of view and that if it's too narrow it makes them motion sick, as if that's some sort of excuse. That is in fact entirely irrelevant, not only to the discussion of wide screen field of view, but to any discussion of field of view at all.
For now I will skip over the issue of self-righteous, elitist, self-styled FPS veterans whose argument is essentially "I have wasted more hours of my life playing FPS's than you so my opinion is correct". That is a subject that deserves special attention and will no doubt receive it in due course.
There really are people who refuse to buy what is in reality an excellent game, simply because they're too ignorant and closed-minded to understand the issue they're complaining about. An issue that isn't actually an issue at all, if only they weren't too stupid to realise. It's laughable.
Get a fucking grip.

Double In!

You'll no doubt be wondering what this is about, like a damned fool. Well, I'll tell you. It's a very special place where I will be broadcasting my valuable insights into this modern world.
Whether or not any of it will get through to you worthless, wretched individuals, well that's neither here nor there.