Risen - Demo Released!

Interesting about your rig. I have almost the exact same specs and I thought I wouldn't be able to play Risen on this computer. Keeping my fingers crossed that I wont have to upgrade!

Yeah, I couldn't believe it. Okay, so this game doesn't look like the next Crysis and I'm happy with just 22-25 fps, but it's still very good! I'd say it looks better than Gothic 3, but it still performs really well here. I was hoping for something playable on minimum settings, but I've maxed almost everything out. I'm playing at only 1370x768, of course… the resolution of my TV. That probably helps a bit versus the big PC monitors.

I hope the demo is representative of the rest of the game. I'm gonna buy this the second I find a copy.
 
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That's also quite similar to my system, but i have a better CPU (E7500, core 2 duo 2.1ghz) and a slightly (I think?) worse video card 8600GT. I've found I can current gen games quite well at low to medium settings, which is fine by me. This is one great thing about the consoles - systems last longer :)

But the question is over whether to get a new comp now to run current gen games at maxed settings, or wait until the next gen starts and get a system then to make sure it canrun those games well. I sometimes put the settings up to max on some games to see what it would look like. But then, I still find a Gothic 1 more immersive than, say, Assasins' Creed because it has a more realistic and reactive world despite AC having much prettier graphics. (although I'm told that AC is much better oncd you get to the main city.)

Arghh, I'm excited about this demo and I'm babling!!

Oh noes!!! my internet is not working. Sometimes I don't get enough electricity at peak times for my router to work properly :(
 
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That's also quite similar to my system, but i have a better CPU (E7500, core 2 duo 2.1ghz) and a slightly (I think?) worse video card 8600GT. I've found I can current gen games quite well at low to medium settings, which is fine by me. This is one great thing about the consoles - systems last longer :)

But the question is over whether to get a new comp now to run current gen games at maxed settings, or wait until the next gen starts and get a system then to make sure it canrun those games well. I sometimes put the settings up to max on some games to see what it would look like. But then, I still find a Gothic 1 more immersive than, say, Assasins' Creed because it has a more realistic and reactive world despite AC having much prettier graphics. (although I'm told that AC is much better oncd you get to the main city.)

In your case the answer is trivial, if your mainboard supports PCIe. A 8600GT is a very slow card according to today's standards. Hell, it even sucked when it came out. ;)
Replace the card with something reasonable and you'll be surprised how fast your PC really is. 100-150$ will work wonders.
 
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Just reporting in: 2.26 P8400, 9800m GTS 1GB, 4 gig RAM, Vista 64 Home Premium smooth as a baby's butt @ 1400x900.

I really think they "borrowed" the code from Gothic 2 quite frankly. Its not just close, the character movements are identical. The camera is identical with all its quirks when you spin around quickly. Too identical.

Whoever said it looks better than G3 though, you must be smoking crack. Everything is very tightly bound like G2, less of an open vista feel. G3 feels MUCH bigger than Risen. Personally, I prefer the G3 game world. Graphically this is more like G2 with incredible textures, bumb mapping, shaders and depth of field.

I'm guessing however I'm going to like combat much better in Risen.

So far so good!
 
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Everything is very tightly bound like G2, less of an open vista feel. G3 feels MUCH bigger than Risen. Personally, I prefer the G3 game world.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Tomorrow, I will hopefully see for myself now that I know its the video card that broke. It said, 'oh no Risen is coming! I'm dead!' It died. What the h?
 
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Whoever said it looks better than G3 though, you must be smoking crack. Everything is very tightly bound like G2, less of an open vista feel. G3 feels MUCH bigger than Risen. Personally, I prefer the G3 game world. Graphically this is more like G2 with incredible textures, bumb mapping, shaders and depth of field.

I certainly wouldn't consider Gothic 2 to be "tightly bound", the world was very open, it just wasn't nearly as large as Gothic 3, which was a bit *too* large imo.
 
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Gosh. Gothic 3 world was so empty and boring. Fortunately, from what I hear, this game seems much better. Downloading the demo at the moment...
 
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Sweet! Played it at 2048x1536 with just about everything (except depth of field) turned on with my 8800GTX. Path? What path? Paths mean "go the other way", right? ;)

All is not perfection - I've got no idea why we can't change the keys to quickload/quicksave and I guess we have to use FRAPS or some such to take screenshots. The jumping is, as the reviews have said, downright funny.

I put a little playlist on WeGame.
 
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All is not perfection - I've got no idea why we can't change the keys to quickload/quicksave...

You can via a small workaround. You need to edit the user config XML file that is stored where the saves are stored (depends on whether you are using XP or Vista... check your user folder).
 
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Having some trouble.

Hey fellas. Just downloaded the Demo, interested in getting the game. Here's my dilemma. It's running like crap and I'm not sure why. First, here are my specs.

Processor - AMD athalon 64 X2 Dual Core processor 4200+.
Ram - 3 GHZ.
Graphics Card - Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS

Now I know it's not alot of ram, but I've dropped all the settings in the game and it's still running choppy, (unless I'm in a cave). Yet one torch will make it choppy all over again. Any pointers on what to do? Much appreciated, thanks.
 
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Whoever said it looks better than G3 though, you must be smoking crack.

It may just have been my PC, but I found Gothic 3 a little rough around the edges. The little things, like the ocean bump mapping, clipping, colour pallette. I think Risen looks a lot more interesting. Gothic 3's world was big, but it seemed less detailed than Risen's.
 
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Hey fellas. Just downloaded the Demo, interested in getting the game. Here's my dilemma. It's running like crap and I'm not sure why. First, here are my specs.

Processor - AMD athalon 64 X2 Dual Core processor 4200+.
Ram - 3 GHZ.
Graphics Card - Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS

Now I know it's not alot of ram, but I've dropped all the settings in the game and it's still running choppy, (unless I'm in a cave). Yet one torch will make it choppy all over again. Any pointers on what to do? Much appreciated, thanks.

That is odd. I ran the demo for a few minutes before I had to go to work earlier and it ran quite smooth on my Athlon 64 4000 with an 8800 GT and 3 GB ram. I was surprised to read how someone said in an earlier reply that they were running the demo well with an inferior system to mine, but after seeing it for a few minutes have to admit the game can be run well even on an old system like mine.

Not sure why you are having trouble, your computer should run it well, it is a more powerful system than mine.

Edited: Didn't mention I still use a CRT monitor and run a resolution of 1152×864.

Maybe you are running it in a resolution that is too high for your computer to handle?
 
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I hope the demo is representative of the rest of the game. I'm gonna buy this the second I find a copy.

Very interesting to hear. I am tempted to try it on my old rig (AMDFX55, X1900XT,
2GB) before the new parts arrive.

A note though. When I first tried the G2 demo back in the day performance was from
ok to great. I distinctly remember the lowest fps was something like 23 when coming
down from the pass from Xardas's tower in front of the little shrine and looking toward
the sheep herder guy. Very playable I thought (for 1280x960 all maxed). The game
itself was a different story (14 fps at that exact same spot and even lower inside the
city). What I am driving at is that performance at the game might be lower generally
(and especially inside the port city)…

I guess it may have to do with the demo being a slice of the actual map (ofcourse
their streaming design could be much more different now and offload/stream
resources more efficiently so the size of the "map" is irrelevant, who knows).


It may just have been my PC, but I found Gothic 3 a little rough around the edges. The little things, like the ocean bump mapping, clipping, colour pallette. I think Risen looks a lot more interesting. Gothic 3's world was big, but it seemed less detailed than Risen's.

I get the same impression even from the vids. Also it is more important imho for a
game to be graphically consistent and glitch free rather than provide an insane amount
of polys and highres textures. That is where G3 was a bit problematic (due to its LOD
mechanism). You could heavily tweak it from the ini though at the point that it would
look very very good. Oblivion for instance with its much praised graphics was far more
problematic in that area and the difference between indoors or even near outdoor and
distant graphics was jarring and an immersion breaker (It too could be tweaked of
course, it just entailed downloading GBs of Textures and Normal maps to replace the
crappy originals)…

Ooops I guess my graphics whore aspect wanted a peek out of the closet ;)
But seriously Art direction and consistency > Latest tech at any case for me.
 
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What I am driving at is that performance at the game might be lower generally (and especially inside the port city)…

That's exactly what I'm worried about. Since my CPU is clearly the lowest performer, there is a chance that with the complete map and tech like in Gothic 3 where NPCs could travel the whole world basically, things might get slow later on. When it's just graphics that need to be rendered, my video card can handle it just fine. When complex calculations that are done by the CPU come into play, my PC might just crash and burn. :(
 
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I decided to just compare Gothic 2, Gothic 3, and Risen and from what I have seen Risen is clearly superior to the previous games. The A.I. in Risen is way better then either Gothic 2 or Gothic 3 and now the enemies will try to flank you. The graphics in Risen are superior to Gothic 3 and also the weather system is way better. The environment is way more detailed and varied then either Gothic 2 or 3 where the brush is more dense and varied and the landscape is much more varied the the former.

So far I have liked the story more then either aforementioned game and unlike Gothic 2 has far less railroading and more choice. The game world sounds like it is far bigger then Gothic 2 but is smaller then Gothic 3. (Haven't played that far yet) In Gothic 2 there was only 1 major city but I know of at least 2 major cities so far (read about one online) in Risen. I know there are at least 2 smaller settlements so far in Risen. (the monastery and the Bandits camp)

I love the combat so far and I love the quests I have experienced so far and this game would have been much harder if I didn't have my shield where as I didn't need a shield for Gothic 2 or 3.
 
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Well to each is own I guess on Gothic 3 graphics and design vs. Risen. I heavily tweaked the G3 ini for distant LOD etc and I thought it was simply amazing. So much detail, so open and realistic (relatively speaking). Risen is clearly gated graphically because of the requirement to perform acceptably on the xBox360. Don't get me wrong though, I think Risen looks great though.
 
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Hey fellas. Just downloaded the Demo, interested in getting the game. Here's my dilemma. It's running like crap and I'm not sure why. First, here are my specs.

Processor - AMD athalon 64 X2 Dual Core processor 4200+.
Ram - 3 GHZ.
Graphics Card - Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS

Now I know it's not alot of ram, but I've dropped all the settings in the game and it's still running choppy, (unless I'm in a cave). Yet one torch will make it choppy all over again. Any pointers on what to do? Much appreciated, thanks.

It should run okay. I have a nearly identical system, just slightly slower, and I was positively surprised.
 
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