Battlefield 2 Demo for Xbox Just Released!

[crypt]

If you have an xbox and xbox live and subscribe to Official Xbox Magazine, or even if you don't, shell out the $9.99 for the magazine and play the demo. It's so amazingly good.

[BTs_Mysterio]

Xbox live games will be too small though. I personally will wait 'til I get a intel mac that can boot windows, or the mac port.

[crypt]

I'll have to agree with Rebel on this one. If it ever gets ported to Mac, will it run? I think the PC requirements are something like 1.7 GHz.

[BFG]

Are we talking a proper port here or a "half arsed low budget, you've got between now and the end of your coffee break to do this" kinda port?

Depends on the game engine, depends on the porting house and their time frame and budget, depends on loads of stuff doesn't it, but i don't see why a good port of a PC game needing a 1.7 pentium can't run well on a recent G5 ...    what were the specs for Doom for the PC - pretty high but they got it running pretty decent on the macs as well.

Then again i kinda doubt we'll ever see it making its way to the mac..

[.vooDoo.]

I'll have to agree with Rebel on this one. If it ever gets ported to Mac, will it run? I think the PC requirements are something like 1.7 GHz.

Correct, 1.7ghz MINIMUM requirements with at least a 128mb video card. All you 64mb video cards are left in the dust. RECOMMENDED specs are a 2.2 ghz PC with a 256 ATI 700 or better or 256 Nividia 6800 or better. This game is the BOMB and is the closest thing to Ghostrecon I have found for compairing Maps.

[BFG]

Is this a custom built Game engine or was it licensed from someone else? - and are we talking 1.7 pentium4 or equiv.?
Hmm if there is one thing that i like about the prospect of the move to Intel chips, its the shift to PCIe etc and the opening of the serious workstation graphics cards to the market... that ATI FireGL card looks nice

[crypt]

I can only imagine what this beast of a game is going to look like on Xbox 360 and PS3 next year.

[KoS.Rebel]

I doubt ill get a 360...but who knows....goin to college and 300 bucks is pushin my limit.

[BTs_Mysterio]

I doubt there would be any issues running on a Dual 2.3 Ghz G5 with a X850 XT. If this was any other forum the trolls would be removed. On to topic on the X360, any game will look 2X better on a PS3.

[crypt]

On to topic on the X360, any game will look 2X better on a PS3.

Highly doubtful, the 360 already comes close plus by the time the PS3 actually launches, assuming their little project goes through, the 360 games will be in 3rd generation or more. Very unlikely you will see a difference.

[BTs_Mysterio]

Crypt, sorry to be rude, but 3-4 months is hardly enough time to develop 3 generations of games. The PS3 launches in Japan this fall, so you must understand developers will have plenty of time to learn the system. It is in benchmarks that the X360 is only half the performance of the PS3, that can't be changed. The XBOX was much more powerful in the first generation, and it looked it compared to the PS2. Time changed nothing there.

You want to talk about due dates not being met look at the X360! They didn't even have a working X360 for e3, unlike Sony's PS3. Microsoft relied on many hidden G5s to make their demos work.

[bronto]

i really don't care, but i wanted to see what an x360 is and i found this:

In an interview with Web site bit-tech.net, ATI Developer Relations Manager Richard Huddy waxed technical about Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 and ATI's role in the machine. The 360 will be using ATI's Xenos graphics processor, and Huddy's job is to chat with potential developers and help them develop the tools that best use Xenos' capabilities.
With regards to the console's architecture, Huddy says, "It's way better than I would have expected at this point in the history of 3D graphics." He sees the unified pipeline, rather than segregated pixel and vertex engines, giving the 360 a huge a huge advantage in accessible processing power.

Huddy goes on to shed some light on backwards compatibility. Each Xbox game is written with specific Xbox hardware in mind, and the 360's move to PowerPCs and ATI graphics doesn't jibe with the Xbox's Intel chips and Nvidia graphics processors. To add to the difficulty, the 360 wasn't designed for backward-compatibility early on in development.

To solve this, Microsoft has implemented the use of emulator programs that will allow the Xbox 360 to play Xbox games. According to Huddy, "emulating the CPU isn't really a difficult task. ...the real bottlenecks in the emulation are GPU calls--calls made specifically by games to the Nvidia hardware in a certain way. General GPU instructions are easy to convert--an instruction to draw a triangle in a certain way will be pretty generic. However, it’s the odd cases, the proprietary routines, that will cause hassle.” Once complete, the Xbox emulators could come pre-loaded on the unit's hard drive or will be downloadable via Xbox Live.

Huddy also dispels the notion of the PlayStation 3's higher graphics clock speed (550MHz versus the 360's 500MHz) means that Sony's console will outperform the Xbox 360. He believes that its ATI's unified pipeline that will make the biggest difference between the Xbox 360 and PS3. ATI archrival Nvidia, who is providing the RSX graphics processor for the PS3, has chosen not to go the route of a unified pipeline.

"This time around, [Nvidia doesn’t] have the architecture and we do, so they have to knock it and say it isn’t worthwhile. But in the future, they’ll market themselves out of this corner, claiming that they’ve cracked how to do it best. But RSX isn’t unified, and this is why I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful."


Source: GameSpot

[BTs_Mysterio]

That is from the mouth of a ATI spokesperson, not the results of benchmarking tests. The CPU of the PS3 performs twice as fast in benchmarks, and thats all there is to know so far.

X360 may actually be signing it's own death as we speak. Microsoft is considering releasing XBOX 360 OS. Why is this bad? This is bad because this means that game developers wont be able to target only one specification anymore. That basically will hit performance and appearance of games. Greed may destroy the X360 before it makes it past it's first gen games.

[crypt]

The PS3 launches in Japan this fall, so you must understand developers will have plenty of time to learn the system.

Try Spring '06 or later in Japan, Sony will never release a console during Spring in the US. I guarantee that.

[BTs_Mysterio]

I find it funny how you are arguing in hopes of another dreamcast. We all know how well that one worked out. Are you going to contribute or simply spam/bate rebel?

[crypt]

Before this turns into a flamewar, lets get back to the topic at hand. I guess it shifted a little from Battlefield 2 to 360 vs PS3, but it's still constructive. I'd like to see what everyone else thinks about the next generation systems. It's all gonna come down to games, as shown by this generation, but I think Xbox 360 is starting to get some massive support and Madden 2006 on it will be a system seller.

Generally consoles have relative lifetimes of 5 years, with it dying out completely within 10. Well, it's been 5 years since PS2 launched in America. It goes without showing that at least a percentage of people will be looking for a new system this holiday. PS3 will not be availible, so 360 will be the viable choice.

[BTs_Mysterio]

*COUGH* DREAMCAST *COUGH*

[.vooDoo.]

stay on topic please.

[crypt]

Myst, you don't understand. The ONLY, and I mean ONLY reason Dreamcast died was because Sega went broke. The Dreamcast was and always will be a tragic loss. No matter what, Microsoft will stick with it until they get ahead in the console wars. Being the richest company in the world doesn't get you nothing. You just don't go wrong with support from Bungie, Epic, and Rare as first party devs. All 3 will release a system seller within a year's timeframe. What does the PS3 have? Killzone 2 created at 5 FPS and sped up to 60 FPS for a video. And Grand Theft Auto which isn't guaranteed to be exclusive. Sure God of War was the greatest game on PS2 and probably will have the greatest sequel of all time on PS3. Resident Evil 5 will knock the socks off any survival horror game, but again not guaranteed exclusive. Metal Gear Solid, again a great franchise, but not guaranteed exclusive. Oh yeah, and Socom, was that even any better than Ghost Recon? No. I'm sorry pal, PS3 is gonna get owned with all the support Microsoft has. Even the Japanese are startin to dig it. I mean, it is all about the games.

Lets talk Nintendo now. I think it [the Revolution] will be in a much more solid position than GameCube is right now, although still a distant 3rd. It's going to sell a lot more, but so will games in general. Revolution will keep all of it's key first party games, and be a cheap second console to a lot of people. I have a feeling if they go back and refine old games such as Goldeneye, possibly add online, more people will play that than many other online games this next generation.

[Jeb]

I play BF2 on pc, its requirements are pretty high.
I have an overclocked 6800gt, 1gig of ram, and a 2.2ghz barton, and its pretty rough sometimes. This won't translate well to mac. On average i get between 30-50fps.

My previous pc videocard was a ati 9600, which was identical to the card in my 1.6ghz g5. In games like ut2k4 my mac would preform half of what it would on my pc. It kinda pisses me off how poorly games are ported to mac, which is why i play on pc these days.

Also i believe that they are not supporting Geforce4 cards at all on pc, so a 500$ card 2 years ago means you can't even launch the game. This shouldn't sit to well considering this is a pretty standard card on mac.

The game however, is fucking incredible. It forces squad based tactics, and cooperation which is pretty rare when playing with strangers. Points aren't all about kills, they reflect leadership, and doing your roll. So a medic could score the most points without firing a gun. There are a few lingering problems on PC but nothing major with gameplay. The larger maps get boring, however playing a small urban map with 64 people, tanks, dropping from choppers, and airstrikes is amazing.

Imagine ghost recon done right. I'd say this game could easly be game of the year on pc, or game of the year on mac in the next few years