Played Need for Speed Underground 2 demo....

I'm sure many ATI owners will find this initial impression interesting as
NFSU was a hot seller on PCs(I upgraded to a 9800 just for NFS)
Just downloaded and played for about 2 hours the just released Need for
Speed Underground 2 demo...and my initial view is disappointing. On my 3Ghz
PC with Radeon 9800(oc'd) card the first thing that got me was the graphics,
which look several levels worse than the original!? For a start, with nearly
all the settings on max visual quality the city/world looks terrible,
nowhere near as detailed or impressive as the first game. The cars look
worse than the orginal, apart from a nice NOS flames effect which is pretty
cool. But my biggest disappointment of all are the babes in the crowd and
especially the ones that start the race- they look like badly drawn
playstation 1 characters! Nooooooooooooooooooo! What have they done to them?
Shame on you EA.
On the plus side, the only new impressive graphical effect is the rainstorm
graphics which has to be the most realistic I've yet seen. Pretty cool when
a thunderstorm starts up in the middle of a race i gotta say.
This demo is too close to the release date of the actual game to expect any
drastic improvements so I would expect this is pretty much what the final
release will look like. Something fishy altogether about the graphics - like
they could have been better but have been simplified to 'fit' in with the
console versions.
Gameplay seems O.K. and it does have that 'one more go' effect so nothing
wrong that.
I know graphics are secondary to gameplay but when a game as ground-breaking
visually and gameplay wise as NFSU is released, you'd expect the producers
to outdo the original by several levels. I was definitely expecting more
from this game after the first game used all available hardware so well -
something that was stated in the first game's documention.
NFSU 1 is one of my fav games of all time, certainly my fav racer of all
time so this sequel had something to live up to. So far it hasn't.

On the plus side, the only new impressive graphical effect is the rainstorm
graphics which has to be the most realistic I've yet seen. Pretty cool when
a thunderstorm starts up in the middle of a race i gotta say.

How does this compare to the rain in NFS High Stakes? I always thought that
the night and rain combo looked cool, here's a link to a video:

http://jeffareid.net/cgi-bin/nfs4dc.wmv

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 19:26:24 +0100, "hg" wrote:

I'm sure many ATI owners will find this initial impression interesting as
NFSU was a hot seller on PCs(I upgraded to a 9800 just for NFS)

Which drivers are you using? I use the 4.4's which until now were the
best all rounders for my 9700 Pro, but in the NFSU2 demo, all I see
are the car and roadside lights!
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.

Which drivers are you using? I use the 4.4's which until now were the
best all rounders for my 9700 Pro, but in the NFSU2 demo, all I see
are the car and roadside lights!
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.

I'm using the 4.9 beta Doom3 drivers - if you read the help file it actually
says 4.9 ATI drivers are strongly recommended for Radeon cards. Looks like
you'll have to dump the 4.4s to play this demo.

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 21:17:35 +0100, "hg" wrote:

I'm using the 4.9 beta Doom3 drivers - if you read the help file it actually
says 4.9 ATI drivers are strongly recommended for Radeon cards. Looks like
you'll have to dump the 4.4s to play this demo.

Thanks, I will try them :-)
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.

"Jeff Reid" wrote in message
news:U2Tfd.19639$SW3.1806@fed1read01...
On the plus side, the only new impressive graphical effect is the
rainstorm
graphics which has to be the most realistic I've yet seen. Pretty cool
when
a thunderstorm starts up in the middle of a race i gotta say.

How does this compare to the rain in NFS High Stakes? I always thought
that
the night and rain combo looked cool, here's a link to a video:

http://jeffareid.net/cgi-bin/nfs4dc.wmv



The effect is similar but better in Underground 2 - the rain is heavier and
road seems to become more reflective when wet so it overall the effect looks
better because there are more lights around and the illumination of the rain
by the headlights is better also. Only thing missing from Underground 2 is
the spray coming up from behind the vehicle. Maybe that's something they
will add for the release.

Has anyone tried the demo with cat 4.10? I am experiencing graphical
problems with cat 4.8 when using both [light trails] and [light glow] at the
same time. The readme.txt recommends cat 4.9, but if I'm gonna change I'd
rather go to 4.10.

--
Tony DiMarzio



"hg" wrote in message ...
I'm sure many ATI owners will find this initial impression interesting as
NFSU was a hot seller on PCs(I upgraded to a 9800 just for NFS)
Just downloaded and played for about 2 hours the just released Need for
Speed Underground 2 demo...and my initial view is disappointing. On my
3Ghz
PC with Radeon 9800(oc'd) card the first thing that got me was the
graphics,
which look several levels worse than the original!? For a start, with
nearly
all the settings on max visual quality the city/world looks terrible,
nowhere near as detailed or impressive as the first game. The cars look
worse than the orginal, apart from a nice NOS flames effect which is
pretty
cool. But my biggest disappointment of all are the babes in the crowd and
especially the ones that start the race- they look like badly drawn
playstation 1 characters! Nooooooooooooooooooo! What have they done to
them?
Shame on you EA.
On the plus side, the only new impressive graphical effect is the
rainstorm
graphics which has to be the most realistic I've yet seen. Pretty cool
when
a thunderstorm starts up in the middle of a race i gotta say.
This demo is too close to the release date of the actual game to expect
any
drastic improvements so I would expect this is pretty much what the final
release will look like. Something fishy altogether about the graphics -
like
they could have been better but have been simplified to 'fit' in with the
console versions.
Gameplay seems O.K. and it does have that 'one more go' effect so nothing
wrong that.
I know graphics are secondary to gameplay but when a game as
ground-breaking
visually and gameplay wise as NFSU is released, you'd expect the producers
to outdo the original by several levels. I was definitely expecting more
from this game after the first game used all available hardware so well -
something that was stated in the first game's documention.
NFSU 1 is one of my fav games of all time, certainly my fav racer of all
time so this sequel had something to live up to. So far it hasn't.

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 16:49:21 -0400, "Tony DiMarzio"
wrote:

Has anyone tried the demo with cat 4.10? I am experiencing graphical
problems with cat 4.8 when using both [light trails] and [light glow] at the
same time. The readme.txt recommends cat 4.9, but if I'm gonna change I'd
rather go to 4.10.

I'm using the 4.9b's from Omega and it's looking fine.

One important tweak I found to improve the IQ is to turn off the
stupid ENHANCED CONTAST and even the FOG. Once I turned those off
along with light trails and motion blur it started to look more like
the 1st NFS:U. I still think the first one is about 20% better looking
and I think we can blame the consoles for the drop in IQ.

I really liked the replay feature!! I never understood why it was left
out of the first one considering the point of the game is to trick out
your ride and make it look cool.

Over all, it looks like I'll be getting this game when it hits.. but
again.. I'm sorry to see a little bit of "consolitis" effect the PC
version.

Pluvious


--------------------------------
thread start:

hq wrote:

I'm sure many ATI owners will find this initial impression interesting
as NFSU was a hot seller on PCs(I upgraded to a 9800 just for NFS)
Just downloaded and played for about 2 hours the just released Need
for Speed Underground 2 demo...and my initial view is disappointing.
On my 3Ghz PC with Radeon 9800(oc'd) card the first thing that got me
was the graphics, which look several levels worse than the original!?
For a start, with nearly all the settings on max visual quality the
city/world looks terrible, nowhere near as detailed or impressive as
the first game. The cars look worse than the orginal, apart from a
nice NOS flames effect which is pretty cool. But my biggest
disappointment of all are the babes in the crowd and
especially the ones that start the race- they look like badly drawn
playstation 1 characters! Nooooooooooooooooooo! What have they done to
them?
Shame on you EA.
On the plus side, the only new impressive graphical effect is the
rainstorm graphics which has to be the most realistic I've yet seen.
Pretty cool when a thunderstorm starts up in the middle of a race i
gotta say.
This demo is too close to the release date of the actual game to
expect any
drastic improvements so I would expect this is pretty much what the
final
release will look like. Something fishy altogether about the graphics
- like
they could have been better but have been simplified to 'fit' in with
the
console versions.
Gameplay seems O.K. and it does have that 'one more go' effect so
nothing
wrong that.
I know graphics are secondary to gameplay but when a game as
ground-breaking
visually and gameplay wise as NFSU is released, you'd expect the
producers
to outdo the original by several levels. I was definitely expecting
more
from this game after the first game used all available hardware so
well -
something that was stated in the first game's documention.
NFSU 1 is one of my fav games of all time, certainly my fav racer of
all
time so this sequel had something to live up to. So far it hasn't.

ea demo never represent the final product quality... :-\

well... I tried it out with the 4.10's and it appears to work fine. No more
graphical corruption with all the options turned on.

Now, with respect to the quality of the demo:

1. I loved the first NFSU.
2. I'm not impressed by NFSU2 - from what I've seen so far.
3. The visual quality of the models is just horrible compared to the first
NFSU
4. I'm not really fond of the motion blur.
5. I really don't know; I just had higher expectations I guess.

Bah... Where's HL2!

"Tony DiMarzio" wrote in message
...
Has anyone tried the demo with cat 4.10? I am experiencing graphical
problems with cat 4.8 when using both [light trails] and [light glow] at
the same time. The readme.txt recommends cat 4.9, but if I'm gonna change
I'd rather go to 4.10.

--
Tony DiMarzio



"hg" wrote in message
...
I'm sure many ATI owners will find this initial impression interesting as
NFSU was a hot seller on PCs(I upgraded to a 9800 just for NFS)
Just downloaded and played for about 2 hours the just released Need for
Speed Underground 2 demo...and my initial view is disappointing. On my
3Ghz
PC with Radeon 9800(oc'd) card the first thing that got me was the
graphics,
which look several levels worse than the original!? For a start, with
nearly
all the settings on max visual quality the city/world looks terrible,
nowhere near as detailed or impressive as the first game. The cars look
worse than the orginal, apart from a nice NOS flames effect which is
pretty
cool. But my biggest disappointment of all are the babes in the crowd and
especially the ones that start the race- they look like badly drawn
playstation 1 characters! Nooooooooooooooooooo! What have they done to
them?
Shame on you EA.
On the plus side, the only new impressive graphical effect is the
rainstorm
graphics which has to be the most realistic I've yet seen. Pretty cool
when
a thunderstorm starts up in the middle of a race i gotta say.
This demo is too close to the release date of the actual game to expect
any
drastic improvements so I would expect this is pretty much what the final
release will look like. Something fishy altogether about the graphics -
like
they could have been better but have been simplified to 'fit' in with the
console versions.
Gameplay seems O.K. and it does have that 'one more go' effect so nothing
wrong that.
I know graphics are secondary to gameplay but when a game as
ground-breaking
visually and gameplay wise as NFSU is released, you'd expect the
producers
to outdo the original by several levels. I was definitely expecting more
from this game after the first game used all available hardware so well -
something that was stated in the first game's documention.
NFSU 1 is one of my fav games of all time, certainly my fav racer of all
time so this sequel had something to live up to. So far it hasn't.