Tomb Raider - Taking the franchise to uncharted locations

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Deviation

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  • #86
    Tessellation is the option that seems to kill frame rates but the TressFX stuff looked more distracting than anything in game. Ended up turning it off because of that. Looks great in stills, not so great when it's flying around. Still, there's potential there.

    Turning off tessellation moved the benchmark from an average of 56fps with a low of 13fps to something with a low of 86fps and an average that was over 120. It's a very pretty game. Too bad I don't get to spend much time playing it tonight.

    Tessellation also seems to be bugged (at least for nVidia users). I was getting some weird graphical glitches and other people are getting outright crashes. No issues so far with it off, however.
     
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    kray28

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  • #87
    I have it maxed out (ultimate quality) on a 6970 @ 2048x1152. I'd say that the graphics are very nice. The hair is interesting to look at. It's the best computer hair I've ever seen, but it's not close to perfect. Still, this is improvement that was a long time coming. The high settings do heat up my card a bit.

    Gameplay is great so far...the only thing I hate are the button mashing QTEs though.
     
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    enigmatik one

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  • #90
    Settings on Ultimate with a 680 @ 1920x1200, running smoothly with no issues so far with Tressfx enabled.
    Wound up turning it off because it looks silly for a sweaty woman caked with mud and gore running around with hair animated like it's been freshly shampooed.
    Gameplay has been epic so far. Easily one of the best games I've played in quite some time.
     
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    NathanHall

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  • #93
    enigmatik one":15pkb2zp said:
    fngurrier":15pkb2zp said:
    People using keyboards or Xbox controller for windows?
    Im just wondering how the QTE's are with keys
    Click to expand...

    Mouse and keyboard, and yes the QTEs are annoying.
    Luckily they're infrequent, and the combat and movement more than makes up for it.
    Click to expand...

    And it's only two keys, AFAIK. E and F.
     
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    eVITAERC

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  • #94
    I have decided that I can't turn TessFX off despite having a midrange cad and averaging 25fps. For me it s the single biggest contributor in making the graphic feel organic, and easily the biggest game changer of the past few years. Not to mention it goes amazingly well with all the ridiculously windy locations in the game (part of why I love Journey so much as well).

    Favorite moment at the beginning is
    when Lara killed someone for the first time

    Lara: I killed someone, I had to do it
    Conrad: ... It couldn't have been easy
    Lara: The worst part is how easy it was

    If only you knew Lara. If only you knew :bigdumbgrin:
     
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    Gandhim3

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  • #96
    Played the intro level this morning before I left for work. Gameplay reminds me of a lot like Uncharted. But that is what I wanted - more Uncharted, so I am not complaining. Sure is incredibly pretty too. Running Ultra settings except tesselation is off. 1920 x 1080 running on the 670 card. Tried the hair thing - like others said, reminds me of a vidal sassoon commercial - turned it off. Playing with the 360 controller, works well.
     
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    frozentech

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  • #97
    So I got up early this morning to play this. Some Thoughts:

    1: Game plays better with a game pad. Dislike this fact but I may tinker with keylayout to see if this can be resolved. Its mostly a QTE thing.

    2: Lara can kill wolves in QTE. But if you screw up you're food.

    3: TressFX goes from awesome to... wtf occasionally. still better then blob of plastic hair, but if you watch her shoulders you'll see her hair never settles on them. Its like her shoulders have a force field designed to keep her hair off them. There are occasions when her hair looks showroom awesome, while she just crawled out of mud pit.

    4: Game control works well. Fights are fast and furious, platforming is solid. Tombs when you find them are fun, though you won't always have what you need to unlock their rewards early on.

    5: While I haven't noticed quite as many mental disconnects as some reviewers, it is kinda funny how in one moment, I killed eight men, mostly with headshots, while bouncing around a room (which works really well, IMHO) and then the next cutscene Lara has a bit of a woe is me moment, I have to climb... again. Still, this Lara has some spunk in her. Like when I decided to kill a trapped man (who a moment before had been unsuccessfully trying to kill me). Lara delivered a line "Go To Hell." as she delivered the coup de grace, in a proper angry british accent. Good stuff ;).
     
    Interactive Civilian

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  • #100
    Just spent the last 6 hours or so playing. Just want to say I'm enjoying it so far, and it feels like a Tomb Raider game to me, at least as much as Anniversary, Legend, and Underworld. I'm likin' it. It's neat to see Lara's confidence incrementally grow as the game continues (unlike previously panicked about, the so-called attempted rape moment barely seemed a blip on the radar compared with everything going on). It's nothing direct (that I can see), just small changes in her tone and the way she carries herself as the story progresses.

    However, I really gotta say that I'm not thrilled with the QTEs. I got to die several times because they sometimes just show symbols without labeling with the key assigned to them, which means if you don't know which symbol meant what, you got to die a few times until you figured it out. The deaths are pretty gruesome, too.

    Other than that, pretty smooth going. :)
    (oh, except for a few too many cinematics, including one that seemed rather out of place)
     
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    renik

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  • #102
    Only had time to run the benchmarks this morning: i7 2600K @ 4Ghz, 12GB RAM, AMD HD7950 (slight overclock) @ 1920x1200. I get about 53 FPS on Ultra with Tressfx turned off; turning it on kills about 10 FPS. That should still be easily playable, but I'll see how the tessellation option helps me. Personally, I'd rather have rounded rocks than pretty hair. I'll see which trade off, if any, is needed to keep the game playable.
    And yes, the benchmark shows the game to be very pretty. I wish there were more AA options, though. Whatever is the standard option (FXAA?) still was a little jagged, but from there I can only step up to super sampling. And I'd rather not play at 10 FPS.
     
    Entegy

    Entegy

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  • #104
    Mortus":1w4oc6kg said:
    However, what the everloving fuck at the resolution options if you choose windowed. 1024X807? What???
    Click to expand...

    Go home resolution, you're drunk.

    Damnit, why didn't I call off today? Now I have to wait until I get home from work to play. :flail:
    Click to expand...
    I knooooooow. It's so painful. I want to plaaaaay. :( I also have to drive out to a client to pick up a machine today that I can't blow off.
     
    krimhorn

    krimhorn

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  • #105
    renik":1mkext7l said:
    And yes, the benchmark shows the game to be very pretty. I wish there were more AA options, though. Whatever is the standard option (FXAA?) still was a little jagged, but from there I can only step up to super sampling. And I'd rather not play at 10 FPS.
    Click to expand...
    See if the SMAA injector will work with it. I've found SMAA looks much better than FXAA and with as little performance cost.
     
    T

    tycheung

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  • #107
    Deviation":2t18ybf4 said:
    Tessellation is the option that seems to kill frame rates but the TressFX stuff looked more distracting than anything in game. Ended up turning it off because of that. Looks great in stills, not so great when it's flying around. Still, there's potential there.

    Turning off tessellation moved the benchmark from an average of 56fps with a low of 13fps to something with a low of 86fps and an average that was over 120. It's a very pretty game. Too bad I don't get to spend much time playing it tonight.

    Tessellation also seems to be bugged (at least for nVidia users). I was getting some weird graphical glitches and other people are getting outright crashes. No issues so far with it off, however.
    Click to expand...

    I'm getting the crashes. They seem reproducible in certain areas on my GTX 670.

    What does it do exactly? Smooth out the polygons?
     
    Mortus

    Mortus

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  • #112
    frozentech":1f6n8u6s said:
    I was thinking about it this morning, but Lara appears to be the only character tressFX effects, even out of cutscenes (where it is not on). Probably a performance thing, but it can be jarring.
    Click to expand...

    I'm assuming having TressFX enabled on all NPCs as well would probably nuke anything less than a GTX Titan. :p
     
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    tedsofbeverlyhills

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  • #114
    kray28":yr4iv26t said:
    One thing I noticed is that some of the pre-rendered cutscenes must have been composed in-engine...sans TressFX. Dumb oversight.
    Click to expand...
    Wouldn't want the console people to get envious if it was the other way around.

    I have a new-ish i7 (3770?), 32 GB RAM, and AMD 5870. With shadows and depth of field bumped down it looks good and runs decently enough (30-40 FPS, 1920x1080) but there are distracting hitches in framerate. It feels like when you're walking a dog and suddenly they stop to sniff something. When the mission title card slides in it's more like a drunken stagger. With this and Bioshock Infinite an card upgrade was considered and since AMD seems to be the red head stepchild these days a 680 is the front runner but for some reason with no logical foundation I don't like nvidia. Any suggestions? I bought a PC to play everything maxed, god damn it, and that's how it's gotta be.
     
    Frosty Grin

    Frosty Grin

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  • #117
    tedsofbeverlyhills":3ev7stwt said:
    since AMD seems to be the red head stepchild these days...
    Click to expand...
    What do you mean? Their cards seem quite competitive. And, unlike Nvidia, they don't try to lock you in with things like PhysX.

    And if you're picking a card specifically for Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite, you can expect both games to perform better on AMD's cards.
     
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    bigkoss

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  • #118
    tedsofbeverlyhills":258uv2gc said:
    As compared to the EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW? A few extra bucks either way is fine.
    Click to expand...

    In most cases the jump from GTX 670 > 680 FTW is over a hundred bucks. Take a look at some benchmarks to determine whether you think the extra dough is worth it, or if you can get a deal on the 680.

    Frosty Grin":258uv2gc said:
    tedsofbeverlyhills":258uv2gc said:
    since AMD seems to be the red head stepchild these days...
    Click to expand...
    What do you mean? Their cards seem quite competitive. And, unlike Nvidia, they don't try to lock you in with things like PhysX.

    And if you're picking a card specifically for Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite, you can expect both games to perform better on AMD's cards.
    Click to expand...

    PhysX is just a feature that some games support or not, I don't see how they're locking you in to anything.

    More importantly, what resolution do you plan to play these games at? If you're going to be playing at 1080p, any of those top-end cards is going to do just fine, AMD or not. You're more likely to be limited by your screen's refresh rate.
     
    krimhorn

    krimhorn

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  • #120
    kray28":3l48miim said:
    One thing I noticed is that some of the pre-rendered cutscenes must have been composed in-engine...sans TressFX. Dumb oversight.
    Click to expand...
    It seemed like it was a fairly last minute thing. We didn't hear anything about TressFX until last week. The prerendered cutscenes were probably done long before TressFX was something that they were certain would be in.

    Frosty Grin":3l48miim said:
    tedsofbeverlyhills":3l48miim said:
    since AMD seems to be the red head stepchild these days...
    Click to expand...
    What do you mean? Their cards seem quite competitive.
    Click to expand...
    Agreed. The 680 may be the frontrunner (and the 670 wins on the price:performance curve) but the Radeons are no slouch. Both companies switch off having the most powerful card just about every year, and both companies work with two or three developers on AAA showcases every year.
     
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