Psychonauts PC Demo out

[JimmyTheFish]

  Intrepid Homoludens said:

30 bucks? How realistic is that, may I ask?

This game is not as tough on hardware as some would lead you to believe. I have personally seen it played smoothly on a MX400, a card which can be bought easily for 30 bucks or less, and is included with any low end PC purchased today. Bump it up to 60 bucks, and you can get a Radeon 9600 which will make it even purdier. For 100, you can get a Geforce 6800 GT, and run it with options maxed and no slow down.

[MrHoatzin]

I have Radeon 9600 pro, no game looks bad on that card. So Psychonauts looks awesome too. Anti-aliasing and all. Running at 800 by 600, I thought it was running at a higher resolution until I checked. That could be why it looks better in-game, than pre-rendered. But also the in-game colours look more vivid than the pre-rendered ones. I don't know, I hate the pre-rendered cutscenes.

[Sopabuena]

I could get the game running on my GeForce 2 using 3danalyzer, but of course it was sound only.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

  JimmyTheFish said:

This game is not as tough on hardware as some would lead you to believe. I have personally seen it played smoothly on a MX400, a card which can be bought easily for 30 bucks or less, and is included with any low end PC purchased today. Bump it up to 60 bucks, and you can get a Radeon 9600 which will make it even purdier. For 100, you can get a Geforce 6800 GT, and run it with options maxed and no slow down.

What about a GeForce 4 Ti 4400? I'll getting a new system soon with 3GHz and lots of RAM, but won't be able to afford a new graphics card for some time.

[Erwin_Br]

  Kingzjester said:

I have Radeon 9600 pro, no game looks bad on that card. So Psychonauts looks awesome too. Anti-aliasing and all. Running at 800 by 600, I thought it was running at a higher resolution until I checked. That could be why it looks better in-game, than pre-rendered. But also the in-game colours look more vivid than the pre-rendered ones. I don't know, I hate the pre-rendered cutscenes.

I have the 9600 XTI/td, so I don't know if it's very different, but it's indeed a terrific card. It beats some of the newer models that are supposed to have more CPU power and memory. Okay, okay, I'm talking about budget models, but still.

I ran the demo in 1024x768 with all options on.

--Erwin

[JimmyTheFish]

  Intrepid Homoludens said:

What about a GeForce 4 Ti 4400? I'll getting a new system soon with 3GHz and lots of RAM, but won't be able to afford a new graphics card for some time.

I may be wrong, but I think the Ti 4400 is a step up from the MX, which is really nothing more than a souped up geforce 2. Either way, that should be fine, if you are willing to turn the settings down a bit.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Well, I could just say 'Fuck it!' and get the Xbox version. Case closed.

[JimmyTheFish]

Yeah, if you got an XBox and a shitty PC, than the solution is obvious. Otherwise, I would go for the PC version.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Well, I could go with the PC version. Which means I'll have to wait a while. I will be getting a new PC in about 3 weeks, but I won't be able to afford a new graphics card. If I get it for Xbox I don't have to wait at all, however, my copy of Jade Empire will arrive first this Friday and I'll end up diving headfirst into that. It's a lose/win/win situation.

[Fum]

  JimmyTheFish said:

For 100, you can get a Geforce 6800 GT, and run it with options maxed and no slow down.

Err...where do you live and what currency are you using? Because a Geforce 6800 GT, even the lesser 128MB version, is definitely a good deal at around $300 USD....

[MrHoatzin]

I've had to uninstall the goddamn demo because I was playing it compulsively.

[JimmyTheFish]

  Fum said:

Err...where do you live and what currency are you using? Because a Geforce 6800 GT, even the lesser 128MB version, is definitely a good deal at around $300 USD....

Well, that might be an exageration. I got mine for 100 US, but it was chock full of mail in rebates and whatnot. Black Friday sales are the best.

[Thrik]

That's insane. My 6600GT was around $240, and that was a reasonable price. :~

Also it seems that, after a little investigation my computer is in actual fact not struggling with Psychonauts for the most part, since I noticed that the occasional slowdowns only seem to kick in after I've been playing for like 3-4 minutes -- before then it's smooth as butter.

It's overheating, to the tune of 80°C plus. I think I'm going to need to thoroughly dedust it and get a couple of extra fans in here. :~

[MrHoatzin]

  Thrik said:

It's overheating, to the tune of 80°C plus.

That is why I kept my case open while playing Half-Life 2...

[Thrik]

Dude, it is open.

The room must have really poor ventilation or something. I'm sitting here with nothing but Firefox and mIRC open (which has been so for a few hours) and it's reporting 72°C. I only have the PSU fan and a generic fan in there though, which is almost certainly not sufficient. Plus there's a load of dust, so I'm going to take it outside and give it some air.

[lailoken]

what is the brand?

mine is a gainward 6600GT and it runs like hell

[Chris]

  Kingzjester said:

That is why I kept my case open while playing Half-Life 2...

Like you say, your PC always works great! Hooray for PCs! They work!

[MrHoatzin]

  Chris said:

Like you say, your PC always works great! Hooray for PCs! They work!

YAY!

[JimmyTheFish]

  lailoken said:

what is the brand?

mine is a gainward 6600GT and it runs like hell

PNC, but like I said, it was a black Friday sale, and I doubt you will be able to find another for that price.

[Fum]

  JimmyTheFish said:

Well, that might be an exageration. I got mine for 100 US, but it was chock full of mail in rebates and whatnot. Black Friday sales are the best.

Even still, that's a crazy deal. You sure you're not talking about the plain 6800, or the 6600GT?

And yeah, case fans are necessary these days. I got myself four Vantec stealth 80mm fans pumping silently through my full tower case, and everything's cool as a cucumber.

[tabacco]

  Fum said:

Even still, that's a crazy deal. You sure you're not talking about the plain 6800, or the 6600GT?

And yeah, case fans are necessary these days. I got myself four Vantec stealth 80mm fans pumping silently through my full tower case, and everything's cool as a cucumber.

Those Vantec fans kick ass. I have one in, one out, plus the PSU out, and some passive case vents. I'm kind of tempted to replace the 60mm fan in my xbox with a stealth fan.

[Jake]

Whenever people star talking about swapping out fans and case mods and cooling and bundling cables and lighting and stuff I always think about the people who always have a half dismantled Fiero or Camaro on blocks in their driveway.

[SoccerDude28]

Who needs fans. The highest end Alienware is cooled by .... water

[Erwin_Br]

I never had to place any extra cooling in any of my rigs. Maybe it's the difference between AMD and Intel? Or perhaps the always cloudy Dutch weather. I imagine outside (and room) temperature can play a significant role.

--Erwin

[Duncan]

I did manage to download the demo without any more apparent complications. It didn't give me prostate cancer or anything, but don't think I'm not having that checked out.

I feel like I kind of missed the boat on the first impressions thing, so I'm just going to second what everyone else said on the game pretty much. My only real complaint comes from the PC/technical side, like the fact that I couldn't run it smoothly until I knocked it down to 800x600 and with almost everything off. Which makes no sense to me, because my computer isn't that shit. Also the controls are playable, but they aren't great, and certainly no better than a gamepad would probably be.

So I guess I'm getting the Xbox version, if it ever comes out here. Which is the part that frustrates me no end, that Majesco are doing this ultra-huge-super-your-life-will-begin-anew-on-april-19th kind of thing but for the rest of the world, it's, oh, it's done when it's done. No rush. It really pisses me off, honestly.