Holy crap!
The HD console scene has been quite satisfying for the length of time I've been out of PC gaming but having a proper yardstick to compare it to - hell, that really does put the cat amongst the pigeons.
The GPU is basically like having the world's most stupidly powerful console on a card that just happens to sit in the world's crappiest PC (at the moment, at least). It takes all the games that I'd previously never been able to run, and turns them into sylph-like things of beauty. And here's the problem too because it also means it's ruined quite a few console classics for me along the way.
Last night, I installed the card. It had a few stability issues (full system locks happening one too many times for my liking, dammit) but the evening went something like this.
1) Take the side off the PC - Realise that the 8800GT is a LONG card and nudges my SATA connectors a bit. A bit of fiddling and twiddling and it's there...phew.
2) Start installing the drivers. Forgot to uninstall the feckin' ATI drivers first which meant a bit more twiddling. Did that, installed the Nvidia drivers. Rebooted. Phew, that looks better (seeing 3D-ness in the Nvidia Panel controls helps a hell of a lot).
3) Ran the standard Direct X tests to see if D3D was doing OK. It was. It is. It looks ace.
4) With my rule of leaving the best till last, I actually started out with Unreal Tournament III. Now, before this game looked like a blocky rubbish piece of shit. With the 8800 suddenly I realised that under that blocky rubbish piece of shit is one hell of a good looking game, with definite stylings towards Gears of War but with some incredible effects. The game itself might have aged pretty badly (who the hell plays arena shooters these days?) but it's as purty as a Georgia Peach
5) Ran the Bioshock demo. Oh god. First game on the 360 ruined permanently then. The PC version looks so much better, plays so much better, and because I'd got a decent sound rig on the PC, it SOUNDS so much better which it needs to because Bioshock is so immersive. All of the tiny little details on the textures come into sharp focus and the water effects just look bucketloads better. I really really don't think I'm going to be able to play the 360 version ever again now...
6) Ran Supreme Commander - not a demo this time but the full retail version which I picked up for a tenner. Fucking hell that's immense. With everything whacked up to full pelt the game just looks stupendous, so busy. I can see me losing a lot of hours to that.
7) Finally, the daddy, Crysis. As you saw from yesterday I could run the game at medium settings on the old rig so I was a bit perturbed when I let it set the optimal settings itself and it tuned everything back down to low. Oh no you fucking don't! With a quick tweak, everything back up to high I re-ran the game after a reboot...and there it was, this legendary game I'd heard so much about, and had heard so many high-end PC goons moaning about...running beautifully on a sub 500 quid rig like an absolute dream.
Again, this is a game that highlights the stark difference between HD console gaming and high end PC gaming. There's no comparison really. Sony and Microsoft (and Nintendo, ha ha) have got a very long way to go before their consoles catch up and by the time they do, PC stuff will have moved on 50 fold again just like it has now. Much as I appreciate the laziness of console gaming (and the lack of stability on the PC last night had me screaming blue murder at the thing more than once too) - when PC gaming is good, and this good too - I feel like doing the Peter Griffin Twinkie Factory / Jodie Foster in 'Contact' thing...
"Should've sent a poet...so beautiful!"
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