DX10 Impressions - Bioshock

[Stormcrow]

Last night around 9pm eastern the demo to Bioshock was finally released, springing up among all the popular hosting sites in hours and prompting new driver releases from AMD and nVidia to support it. As one of the first games to natively support DX10 without patches, and the first demo out of the gate for this falls killer lineup, I was first in line at Fileshack to get the gig and a quarter package.

Minimum Requirements
CPU: P4 2.5 GHz single core.
System RAM: 1GB
Video Card: Pixel Shader 3.0 compliant video card with 128 Meg Ram and floating point frame buffer blending.
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Hard Drive: 7 GB

Recommended Requirements
CPU: 3GHz dual core processor
System RAM: 2 GB
Video card: Pixel Shader 3.0 compliant video card with 512 Ram (Nvidia(R) Geforce(R) 7900 GT or better)
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Hard Drive: 7 GB

Bioshock does support dual/quad core processors, and without one you're guaranteed to take a performance hit.
"BioShock is optimized for dual core machines. If the game is run on a single core machine then a processor of 2.5GHz or better is required to get reasonable performance. The higher the clock speed of the processor the better the game will run. Most dual core machines will be optimum for BioShock"
It's about time, for all of us with >2.4GHz dual cores suffering in current games due to lack of multi-threaded support, here's your break. Even a measly Athlon X2 3800+ at 2.0GHz is enough to run this game outstandingly, as you'll see below thanks to it's dual cores.

Test System:
Athlon X2 3800+ (stock)
Evga nForce 590 SLi AM2
2 gigs DDR2 533MHz
7200 rpm WD 160gig HDD
Evga 8800GTS 640mb (stock)
Creative Audigy SE
Windows Vista 32-bit

Drivers:
nVidia Forceware 163.44 beta
AMD Dual Core Timing Optimizer
Current Creative Vista Drivers (no EAX support)

Not the epitome of enthusiasm, a decent midrange build in it's own right. This setup can be built for around $900 right now and makes a great testbench to determine how well current budget built systems can handle next-gen games.

Recordings were taken using Fraps, the current Bioshock Demo doesn't have a built in test for recording.

Upon opening the game, your taken to the main menu where you can configure all the settings like in the retail version. For obvious purposes, I set everything to High for the highest graphical damages to framerates, with only Global Lighting off by default. Resolution is set to 1028x768, the mode this monitor prefers to run in. Therefore those with 1600x1200 monitors and up should take that into consideration when judging these benchmarks.

Details:
Graphics Quality: High
Actor Detail: High
Texture Detail: High
Shadow Maps: On
High Detail Post Processing: On
High Detail Shaders: On
Real Time Reflection: On
Distortion: On
Force Global Lighting: Off
DirectX 10 Detail Surfaces: On

Resolution: 1028x768

A brief opening scene all in first person perspective introduces the character on an aircraft while in transit, named Jack apparently from a note in his wallet. Almost immediately the jet shakes, and people scream as it crashes into the North Atlantic. Jack struggles to the surface amid the burning wreckage where you take control and get the first glimpse of some awesome particle/smoke effects. All screenshots are real time in-game, with no movies having been found in the demo. They have been resized to be more forum and bandwidth friendly.



From here theres only one point to go, a Lighthouse not far off. As you swim through the wreckage the screams of survivors can be heard, the sizzle of flames, the bubbling sound of the jet itself slowly sinking into the ocean with some beautiful distortion waves for the heat of the fire. Looking up at the sky long enough, you see the smoke actually clear enough in some spots to show the sky and moon. An excellent way to start off a game.



Inside the lighthouse there's some pretty interesting architecture, and the overall socialist feel of Rapture is apparent from the get go. Note the details of the textures and the lighting of the statue, which is reflected in real time as you move around the light sources. Marvelous.

Downstairs is the only place to go, with a random Bathysphere sitting ready to take you below. Plotholes aside, just get in, pull the lever, and be treated to a brief introduction to Rapture and some stunning visuals.



Here is where things start to get weird and hair raising. Transmissions begin over the radio as people in the underwater city describe the burning crash above. As soon as you arrive in drydock, a random dude is slaughtered against the glass of the bathysphere by a half human creature, who then tries to claw its way into the bubble and get to you. On the radio is Atlas, who will be your guide to all the fun killers in Rapture. First order of business involves a wrench, the previous claw creature, and some good Half-Life style whacking.


Plasmids are one of the key features of Bioshock, and the reason for the chaos in Rapture. They contain a substance which reprograms your DNA for all sorts of purposes, and is injected into the body where it takes hold. The first plasmid you pick up is Electro Bolt, which gives you a awesome Sith Lighting effect and causes the veins in your hands to glow blue with electricity. Nice.



Right click brings up your Plasmids, and left click brings up your conventional weapons. The Electro Bolt kills basic enemies, and short circuits control panels. Stronger enemies are temporary stunned and easy pickings for machine gun fire or wrench whacking. Two Plasmids are included in the demo, Electro Bolt and Incinerate which makes being a pyro feel oh so good. Mmm, those particles are tasty.



Plasmids have a blue "mana bar" which is refilled by looting EVE injections off toasty enemies or found laying and then injected. Health is replenished by the same means with Med Kits. Another unique feature I came across were cigarettes, which replenish EVE but hurt health when smoked, and some good fine whiskey which does the opposite when drunk.



Whoops, activated a Sentry area who now has a bunch of machine gunner flying drones on my ass. These pesky little bots can be shot out of the sky, but keep coming back until the counter on the screen reaches zero. They can also be "hacked", and used as allies to waste the creepy splicers who want you dead for whatever reason.



Hacking is pretty much all in that screenshot. You have part of a pipeway surrounded by question mark boxes thats slowly being filled with...something. Anyway, in order to successfully hack, the flow must reach the bottom pipe with the green arrow. To do so, you click on the question tiles which reveal different parts of pipes, which can then be dragged and assembled into a pipeway to lead the flow to the arrow. If the flow reaches the end of the pipe before you add the next segment, the hacking fails. Get to the arrow in time, and you get a nifty little homicidal Killbot to back you up. Sweet.



Even the environment of Rapture can be used to your favor, as in the above screenie. A water filled city, combined with a good blast of Sith Lighting makes for a fun attack and a nice display of DX10 abilities. Bwaha, fry sucka fry! This here was pretty much a one hit kill, with some twitching and sparks after.



Check out those shadows. Stopping for a moment during an intense firefight, one can truly appreciate the work put into this game. The lighting is perfect, the shadows are filtered real time to give the best possible image, and even when looking out of the glass into the rest of the city the water ripples and distorts the image as if a current is passing by. Get shot a few times and you'll get a quick but effective motion blur to demonstrate the ouch. Bounce some bullets around and the sparks momentarily light up the enemies ugly mug.

Rapture itself looks like a cross between a 1950's New York and Gotham City. It's both eerie and inviting, deadly but stunning to look at and explore. The environment really comes alive in this game, and if this is the future of DX10 we're all in for a very nice treat. Without a DX9 card good enough to run this game (eg 7900 series), I can't really comment on how the game looks compared to itself rendered in 9.0c, but compared to DX9 titles like STALKER, Oblivion and SupCom the shaders and details make a world of difference.

Max FPS: 86
Lowest FPS: 31
Average exploring: 58-62
Average in intense firefights/wrench whackingfests: 35-40
Average in shocking crap with Electoball: 48-50

Even when the game dipped to 30, it was still very playable with no noticeably loss or lag. With a total average topping out at 50FPS with everything set to high, things look bright for those of us itching to put our 8800s/2900s to use. Even though this was at 1028x768, my 3800+ is considered underpowered for this game and often bottlenecks the 8800. An E6600 or X2 6000+ I'm confident would give much better results, especially at higher resolutions. With this in mind, the first generation of DX10 cards look to be set to handle this fall's lineup with some pretty stunning visuals and awesome eyecandy. 8600/2600 and lower will have to tone down the settings or face framerate issues, a disappointment but the cards are known for their crummy preformance. In fact, I'm not sure a 8500GT/2400XT would be able to play this at anything above Low at 1024x1028, and an 8600/2600 perhaps on medium. That just goes to reinforce the sorry state the current midrange is, and hopefully AMD and nVidia will shape up in the future. But those of us with a G80 or R600 need not be concerned, if Bioshock is at all any kind of test for the new DX10 games we look to be in very good shape.



Anyone with a 6800/1650XT and higher should check out the demo in DX9 mode and see how the new generation plays on their system. I'm especially interested in the graphical differences and framerates with X1950/7900 and the midrange 8600/2600. These are what most people have for setups now and look to be the biggest market for the first DX10 games out of the gate. The newest drivers from AMD/nVidia will be needed to actually play the game without some crap performance, but perhaps the beta drivers might actually fix some issues with other games as well.

In all, the Bioshock Demo had no problems at all running on my midrange machine with the fullest graphical settings. I never once encountered any lag or freezing common with systems being strained, and with a more powerful processor I'm certain that my G80 could have scored even higher framerates. That being said, a single 8800/2900 looks to be able to run Bioshock at the highest settings up to 1600x1200. SLi will probably be needed for anything higher to keep the detail sliders all the way to the right. Either way, DX10 with Bioshock is gorgeous, and if we can expect the same performance or more for Crysis, World in Conflict, Alan Wake and the others then us gamers may soon enough find ourselves in nirvana. Of course, Bioshock uses the same game engine as soon to be released Unreal Tournament 3, so I know what my next multiplayer game is going to be.

[RA1D]

awesome preview stormcrow! i'm downloading now... estimated time left: 4hrs!?!

[Stormcrow]

Haha, yep. Thats how long it took for me too. Its worth it though.

[stinger608]

Freaking awesome man!!!! That was a great write up on this killer demo

Unfortunately I am going to have to try this demo with the setup I have now

It will not even come close to the eyecandy you seen running the DX10, but it does look to be a good looking game, even in DX9!

Thanks for the demo review Stormcrow!

Downloaded this last night, just before bed, and got up this morning to it being done, just haven't had a chance to install and give it a try

[Stormcrow]

SLi'd 7600GTs should give you performance between a 7900GS and 7900GT. Not bad, and I'm curious to see how last gen cards handle the new games in DX9 mode.

[Dr. V]

The RAM is where you'll will take a performance hit stinger. SLI 7600 is perfectly fine.

I'm really anxious to see how a 7900GS handles this game. My good ol' BFG has been doing a great job holding me off so far, and I'm sure it will do just fine until the 9000 series come out this holiday-ish season. When this happens, I'm either gonna grab (what will be) a dramatically reduced price 8800GTX, or a 9000 series card if they aren't too overkill on the price (as long as they're no more than the current 88GTX price, I'll be highly considering one).

Will post some results tomorrow.

[Quakindude]

I'll try it out on my XP install with the 8800GTS and then, tomorrow after I get home from some surgery(nothing serious), I'll install Vista and see what the differences are.

[Panda Man]

Hope it all goes well Q-dude

I went back to XP. I forgot why, I'm going to swap back to Vista tonight just for this :O thanks for the preview :D

[Dr. V]

Make sure you guys get the two awesome productivity and performance upgrades. They immensely help gaming/graphical, and basically all-round performance of Vista. I most definitely noticed a difference with it!

[Yellowhello]

I don't think I could run this on a 8600GT.........................