I have the Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Single Player Demo!!!!

[Dandingo]

And by the way, I think the demo rocks. I think it looks great and liked the gameplay well enough that I will purchase the game. I actually skipped SC:PT. I think you guys tend to get caught up with all the "shader model this, shader model that" stuff. I enjoy the game immensely and to me it looked great and ran great, with the lack of quality games lately how is everyone still caught up with what shader model is used? While im sure there are some reasons for what was implemented and what was not implemented, did you even bother finishing the demo? If you did, did you like the gameplay? In a way I am kind of shocked that it is running using the 1.1 SM Path and that it still looks pretty damn good. Anyway nuff said, just my opinion.

[Destroy]

Does anyone else feel this demo was a bit on the 'too dark' side?

I got my monitor maxed out, ingame brightness and contrast maxed out and play at night with light out in my room and the screen is just ok. I'd prefer it a tad brighter.

This demo is 85% near Doom3's darkness.

Also, I sure hope this doesn't represent one full mission out of the 10 in the full game cause it was very short. And if it was, there's gonna be like only 5 hours of gameplay in the full.

[|FRITZ|]

did you puss out and play on easy?


and its splinter cell man. that why you have night vision goggles.

[Destroy]

No, I played on Normal. Stats page at end of demo said it took me 32min to finish the mission and I didn't rush by any means, heck I stood around a lot and gawked at the pretty visuals.

[Quelaar]

I can see Sam perfectly in the darkest areas...the game is even brighter than previous versions, where he simply melts into the darkness.

I'd check your monitor, cuz it seems perfect for me.

Quelaar

[Quelaar]

Sorry to double post, but how do you know someone out after you've grabbed them?

I can't get good mission scores if I'm stabbing them in the back (primary fire), or chocking them (2nd).

Thanks,

Quelaar

[Spynole]

I finally got 100% mission score. I finished in 16:04 but I practiced a few times already. I snuck past everyone except for the last guard at the top of the light tower which I used a sticky shocker on. I found out that if you kill him it only gave me a 98% so I started over and used the sticky shocker on him. Other than that, to get a high score you can't alert anyone to your presence. They can notice something in the dark and go investigate but they can't get so alerted to the point where they fire at you. I also noticed the guy who is welding the gate thing doesn't always finish welding, he will just go on forever. I don't know if it is a glitch or what. BTW, I'm playing the XBOX version until the PC demo is officially released.

[Odiumvex]

May I have a PM?

[Potato Masher!]

Originally Posted by Quelaar

Sorry to double post, but how do you know someone out after you've grabbed them?

I can't get good mission scores if I'm stabbing them in the back (primary fire), or chocking them (2nd).

Thanks,

Quelaar

Unlike Pandora Tomorrow or SC1, Sam Fisher this time seems to have no non-lethal force.

So all the people you encounter will have to be killed unfortunately unless you use stuff like the sticky cam.

Wwell, atleast no more "lethal force is not allowed" crap.

[Potato Masher!]

Originally Posted by Odiumvex

May I have a PM?

For what? The link for the dl?

YGPM

[Spynole]

Finally found the source for a post i deleted earlier. This is an interview with one of the SC:CT developers which partially regards the possibility of including SM 2.x but the interview is from last October so take from it what you will.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewto...er=asc&start=0

Since the screenshot is taken using a SM1.1 renderer, can you tell me what improvements we'll see when using SM2.x and SM3.0 renderers instead of a SM1.1 renderer? Also, what difference will we see between SM2.x and SM3.0?

The SM 2.0/3.0 version is in development at the moment but we aren't ready to talk about its advantages (beside removing gradients/banding) yet. As always, the improvement in quality we will get is dependent upon the amount of assets redesigned to take full advantage of SM 2.0/3.0 shaders. That said, some of the art in the game is going to look significantly better without having to restart from scratch.

[Destroy]

Originally Posted by gaurav_fhs

Unlike Pandora Tomorrow or SC1, Sam Fisher this time seems to have no non-lethal force.

So all the people you encounter will have to be killed unfortunately unless you use stuff like the sticky cam.

Wwell, atleast no more "lethal force is not allowed" crap.

To knock out someone, sneak up behind them then use right mouse button to bop them in the head.

One thing I thought was lame was the frag grenade hardly does any damage to the enemy. It went of right next to them and didn't kill them.

[team cason]

Hmmm the demo is stuck in window mode, it was like that from the start. I've tried editing the config file. Has anyone had this problem? More importantly, does anyone know how to fix it?

Thanks

[Nupraptor]

Originally Posted by team cason

Hmmm the demo is stuck in window mode, it was like that from the start. I've tried editing the config file. Has anyone had this problem?

Has anyone read the thread? Anyone?

[Demirug]

If you can not run the demo in fullscreenmode please try to remove tools that try to force a refreshrate. The demo request allways a 60Hz mode. If it can not get one it will switch to windowmode.

Beta 2 of out DirectX Tweaker Tool will contain an option to override such behavior. Sorry for this plug.

[team cason]

Originally Posted by Demirug

If you can not run the demo in fullscreenmode please try to remove tools that try to force a refreshrate. The demo request allways a 60Hz mode. If it can not get one it will switch to windowmode.

Beta 2 of out DirectX Tweaker Tool will contain an option to override such behavior. Sorry for this plug.

I'm not using a tool which forces refresh rates. I did try to set the monitor to running 60Hz all the time but it still opened in window mode.

Originally Posted by Nupraptor

Has anyone read the thread? Anyone?

Thanks for that genius. Yes i have. Try not to be such an ass next time or even better, just don't post.

[Eisberg]

Originally Posted by team cason

I'm not using a tool which forces refresh rates. I did try to set the monitor to running 60Hz all the time but it still opened in window mode.



Thanks for that genius. Yes i have. Try not to be such an ass next time or even better, just don't post.

Is this demo released yet, and where can I get it?

[chadashcroft22]

Could someone pm me the demo. Ty.

[jolle]

Originally Posted by Demirug

If you can not run the demo in fullscreenmode please try to remove tools that try to force a refreshrate. The demo request allways a 60Hz mode. If it can not get one it will switch to windowmode.

Beta 2 of out DirectX Tweaker Tool will contain an option to override such behavior. Sorry for this plug.

RefreshLock works, from the same guy (or guys) who made Reforce, but its a program that is kept running, instead of a frontend to modify permanent registry changes, guess thats why it works while Reforce doesnt (in this perticular demo)


Seems really promising this game, fun and looks great, skin is a bit on the shiny side as usual these days but hey, the gameplay is good, the rest is just a very ncie bonus..
Its odd with the SM1.1 / SM3.0 thing, why not just put in a SM2.0 path and extend SM3.0 ontop of that? thought that was the way people went about it.. still time for them to add it for retail perhaps...
Got all the goods ON here with my 6800GT, cept for the Hardware Shadow Mapping, didnt seem to work with my current drivers (shadows didnt show, as mentioned in readme)

[Cassini]

Originally Posted by jolle

Its odd with the SM1.1 / SM3.0 thing, why not just put in a SM2.0 path and extend SM3.0 ontop of that? thought that was the way people went about it..

I thought that was pretty obvious by now. Ubisoft spend much time on the SM1.1 path and optimized it in a way so that it looks now almost like a SM2.0 path but nevertheless only requires SM1.1 hardware. The reason to do this was clearly that they decided to offer amazing Xbox 1 graphics never seen before on that console.

At the same time Ubisoft also wanted to create a next-generation graphics experience and designed shaders which surpass SM2.x limitations because they had from the beginning on the Xbox Next in mind which includes a SM3.0 GPU.

Optimizing the SM1.1 path to look like SM2.0 graphics and also designing a superior SM3.0 path for the next generation consoles did not leave them much time to concentrate on another path for SM2.0. This was also not needed because the SM1.1 path looked so good.

By taking this risky decision they are now the first gamedeveloper to offer a superior SM3.0 game and needed less time to develop it than using SM2.0 for probably slightly less advanced graphics since some SM3.0 shaders would be very difficult to port to SM2.0.

Originally Posted by jolle

still time for them to add it for retail perhaps...

no, as mentioned already several times before, no SM2.0 path has been written for SCCT. Ubisoft could upgrade the SM1.1 path to SM2.0 now but that would take too much time to code, tweak and test and that's probably why they won't do it. At the same time downgrading the SM3.0 path to SM2.0 would probably take even more time than for the SM1.1 to SM2.0 conversion.

Originally Posted by jolle

Got all the goods ON here with my 6800GT, cept for the Hardware Shadow Mapping, didnt seem to work with my current drivers (shadows didnt show, as mentioned in readme)

I'm currently using the 71.80 driver in SCCT and all features work without any issues. Maybe you could try them also.


On a different note: I played now twice through the demo and really found the gameplay amazing. Nice map, beautiful designed although slightly too linear but I heard the other levels were not that linear so I have high hopes for the full game. Perfect stable and smooth gaming experience.

[jolle]

havent been paying alot of attention to the thread, its friggin long..
I assumed the SM1.1 was due to the Xbox, saw my bro play the demo on his 9700pro and at a quick glance it doesnt look all that different from how it does here so yeah, maybe there isnt any need for SM2.0 path..
dunno, and dont really care all that much either tbh hehe..

using 71.81 here.. think I tried 71.80 but they tended to crash CS:S so I gave them the finger and sent them packing..
odd that it doesnt seem to work with 71.81.. maybe if I enable it and restart the game or something..

EDIT acctually, it DID work..
when I enabled it before starting the mission, instead of during the mission..

[Judas]

Can 6600GT users please comment on the performance of the demo?

Thanks.

[Judas]

Originally Posted by Demirug

2.B designed for this matter? Who have told you this? Even 2.A have a stronger featureset but the NV3X cards with the poor FP performance make it hardly usefull at all. But this is an other story.

ubi uses something that is called "übershader". At the moment if you have an DirectX engine this concept can only used meaningfull with SM3. SM2.0 did not have sufficient instruction slots. SM2.A and SM2.B did provide enough slots but missing branching. This force the chip to execute to many instructions for every single pixel. A SM3 chip will step over this unused instructions. I am not talking about dynamic branching as we allready know that a NV4X need large pixelblocks to make this run well. I am talking about static branching.

The next problem with some of the shaders is that the vertexshader need to send 10 vectors to the pixelshader. SM2 (all variants) only supports 8 vectors. It is possible to reduce this number because many of this vector values depend on the position. In this case you can only send the position but than you have to do all the calculations in the pixelshader. This will slow you down again.

You can work around this problems if you use an other concept but this means that you have to write extension for the engine and the toolchain you allready have.

Is this ubershader something like a general shader that can use different profiles to create shader effects?

[jolle]

did some comparision screens if anyone is interested..

SM1.1
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfold...d7/SC_sm11.jpg
SM3.0 (no HDR)
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfold...sm30_noHDR.jpg
SM3.0 full
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfold...d7/SC_sm30.jpg

Game looks great in all modes IMO.
The HDR isnt as pronounced as with Farcry where its used with a autoexposure feature, which it isnt here from what I can tell, seems a bit more colorful and with a bit more contrast thats about it..
(sorry if im repeating things, thread is too long hehe)

[Demirug]

Originally Posted by Judas

Is this ubershader something like a general shader that can use different profiles to create shader effects?

No. If you use an ubershader you have to write only one shader for all variants of a effect. Switch between the different variants is done by change binary flags. SM3 static branching let you use ubershader with GPUs. Without SM3 you need a shader for each variant and switch beetween the whole shaders.

[RevolutioniZed]

I want the demo...how do i get it?

[Cassini]

Originally Posted by Demirug

Beta 2 of out DirectX Tweaker Tool will contain an option to override such behavior. Sorry for this plug.

When will beta 2 be made available, demirug? Thx

[Demirug]

Originally Posted by Cassini

When will beta 2 be made available, demirug? Thx

Next week. One of the new plugins for this release will enable a 4x Supersampling AA Modus on all cards. Unfortunately there are still some limitation. Mainly the max resolution.

[Apple740]

Originally Posted by Cassini

Optimizing the SM1.1 path to look like SM2.0 graphics and also designing a superior SM3.0 path for the next generation consoles did not leave them much time to concentrate on another path for SM2.0. This was also not needed because the SM1.1 path looked so good.

Point is they left out things like parallax for Ati users, which is ridicilous.
I hope their lazyness for not creating a sm2.x path (which with some workarounds would most likely look identical to the "superior" 3.0 path) will be punished by all Ati users to not buy this game, cutting of millions from their sales.

About HDR: Tim Sweeney from Epic stated this clearly: FP16 blending can be done on R3xx/4xx hardware with a workaround, rendering to another texture and do the blending in a shader program. This is what they'll do for the next Unreal game. Another option would be 16bit integer HDR which Valve is using in the upcoming Ati levels. (their early Source HDR demo looked very impressive, and hey, it had FSAA too!!)

Obviously, Nvidia sponsored this whole SCCT 1.1/3.0 HDR BS, the same as with Farcry's Openexr HDR. How do they do this each time? Is their relationship with game developers simply better than Ati's? Are they simply paying more? Doesn't Ati want to pay? (well, only to Valve )

[Nupraptor]

Originally Posted by Apple740

Obviously, Nvidia sponsored this whole SCCT 1.1/3.0 HDR BS, the same as with Farcry's Openexr HDR. How do they do this each time? Is their relationship with game developers simply better than Ati's? Are they simply paying more? Doesn't Ati want to pay? (well, only to Valve )

You ever considered that it has nothing to do with nVidia paying off the developers, and everything to do with the fact that ATi cards simply lack some features that nVidia cards have? (SM3.0, support for 2048x2048 textures, etc)

I love my 9700 Pro, and my next card will probably be an X850 XT, but I realize that I still won't be able to use SM3.0. It's a trade-off you make for having a faster card.

Originally Posted by team cason

I'm not using a tool which forces refresh rates. I did try to set the monitor to running 60Hz all the time but it still opened in window mode.

Thanks for that genius. Yes i have. Try not to be such an ass next time or even better, just don't post.

Next time, you might want to mention that you've tried the solution that's already been posted, "genius". Since it looks like you're just asking the same question over again.