I'm downloading Bioshock right now - SHOULD I INSTALL IT?

TaoFan

TaoFan

Newbie
Joined
May 26, 2006
Messages
223
Reaction score
0
Because I've heard about this rootkit business and the malware, and I'm not sure what other nasty surprises will be waiting for me if I DO install it.

Also, I've heard Bioshock is the first game to use the Unreal 3 Engine, and my system is only a measly Athlon 64 2Ghz+ machine with 1Gb of RAM and perhaps an above-average 3D card - should I risk it?
 
You should try the demo, to see if the game will run. But at your own risk. I played it and I dont see anything wrong with my computer yet.
 
The rootkit claims are a bunch of overblown bs. Bioshock doesn't install rootkits period. Personally I think all this malware business is the rantings of overly paranoid people with too much time on their hands.
 
Even if they were rootkits, Bioshock is worth it. :)
It has done nothing on my system. Some registry entries mainly used for authentication.

But yeah, give the demo a shot before you put money down on something that may or may not run on your PC. Just some insurance. Will run on DX10 and DX9 cards with SM3.0.
 
Nemesis, I didn't use a Torrent, it was FileShack I got the Demo file from. Sorry, I didn't mention it was the demo at first.
 
haha
there wont be any of that stuff since its only used for activation like others have said
 
soulslicer said:
why the hell is ubisoft and ea being so gay..
Click to expand...

Err, neither of those companies had anything to do with Bioshock at any time. The game was developed by Irrational Games (now Take-Two Boston) and published by 2K (take-two's publishing label). They did however, use SecuROM for DRM, a subsidiary of Sony.
 
giant384 said:
haha
there wont be any of that stuff since its only used for activation like others have said
Click to expand...
Except both the demo and the Steam version come with SecuROM protection for some reason :P
 
I decided to play the demo after all:

My system with 1Gb of memory and 2.2Ghz clock speed based on an Athlon 64 processor barely cut it at my preferred resolution of 640x480 with almost all graphics options turned on. As a comparison, Doom 3 runs like a dream at High quality and Prey runs fine too, but not on High.

But I don't think I'll be playing the game much longer. Impressive though the water effects were (beating up HL2 to a bloody pulp), I don't think I like the Art Deco look of the game, nor many other factors about it, especially it being a logical successor to System Shock 2 which I HATED.
 
640 x 480? You living in the stone-age?
 
omg lol that would hurt my eyes!!!
seriously dude why such a low resolution.....?
your system cant be that bad.
 
TaoFan said:
My system with 1Gb of memory and 2.2Ghz clock speed based on an Athlon 64 processor barely cut it at my preferred resolution of 640x480 with almost all graphics options turned on. As a comparison, Doom 3 runs like a dream at High quality and Prey runs fine too, but not on High.
Click to expand...
My processor is close to yours - an Athlon64 3400+ (ie. 2.4Ghz clock). With 2Gb RAM and a Radeon x1950 AGP it runs Bioshock very smoothly indeed with everything on high, although I keep the res to 1024x768. It's the graphics card that makes all the difference.
 
My 3D card is a nVidia GeForce 7300 LE - maybe the fault lies there?
 
First of all, why are you running at 640 x 480?
 
Because I prefer speed and smoothness of movement over sharpness and detail of image, plus the fact that I usually go for the cheaper 3D cards, meaning that higher res = slowdown.

I've been this way for years, since the days of Doom. I'm just not bothered by jaggies and pixelly textures, unlike most people.

For example, I would happily play Duke Nukem 3D at the default 320x200 resolution on DOSBox.
 
Stigmata said:
Except both the demo and the Steam version come with SecuROM protection for some reason :P
Click to expand...

This is because people have been known to compare the executable files of the game with those of their demos in order to create a crack for the final game.
 
I thought a 640 x 480 resolution would yield a slower frame rate somehow?
 
Is man not entitled to the game he buys?

NO, says the man at SecuRom. It belongs to 2K.
NO, says the man at 2K. It belongs to us.
NO, says the man at Microsoft. It belongs to our license purchasers.

I rejected those answers.

Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...piracy! Where the gamer would not be censored, where the PC owner would not be bound by petty encryption, where the buyer would not be constrained by corporate greed. And with the downloading of your torrents, piracy could become your salvation.
Click to expand...
Funny hausers! :laugh:
 
I caved in and bought the damn game...! I'll be losing internet access for a long time due to moving house, so I figured it was either get it now and activate it on the net, or wait an aeon and maybe have it spoiled before I get a chance to play it.

So anyway I've been a big critic of the measures they've taken to copy protect the game, but it did install without a hitch for me, if anyone's trying to get an idea of how awkward it is or isn't to install. I'm a bit paranoid about using securom-blacklisted programs like Process Explorer, but having not used them tonight I've had no problems thus far.

On a side note, the serial entry screen was a bit annoying since it's just a single line for input and not separate boxes for each block of the number. As a result I neglected to include the hyphens the first time, then typo'ed on the second, and was shitting bricks before it finally went in right the third time. Minor gripe I suppose.
 
No-one has mentioned if my 3D card cuts it or not, yet. I'd like to know.
 
Well the 7300 is basically, a load of crap. You'll be able to run it but probably not all that well. =/
 
-Psycho- said:
Well the 7300 is basically, a load of crap. You'll be able to run it but probably not all that well. =/
Click to expand...

So my processor is fine, more or less? As I said, I do tend to buy the cheaper stuff.

In fact, I think my 3D card was shown up when my flatmate demonstrated his new top-of-the-range (and I mean TOP of the range) 3D card on his dual-core system using the latest 3D Mark benchmark. His ran as smooth as silk on the demanding tests, whilst mine looked like a slideshow.

I don't remember the model number, but I do remember it had 768Mb of onboard memory! Now that's impressive, isn't it?
 
No chance matey. If you haven't even got a dual-core CPU then your screwed.
 
768 of onboard is the 8800 GTX. And yeah, the 7300 is pretty craptastic apparently.
 
-Psycho- said:
No chance matey. If you haven't even got a dual-core CPU then your screwed.
Click to expand...
This is nonsense (unless you were talking about the combination of his processor and card) - as I said, the game runs very respectably on my single core Athlon64 3400+, all settings high. Pushing the resolution past 1024x768 might start introducing debilitating slowdown, but I haven't tried. Happy with this resolution tbh.

On the other hand, my friend with an Intel Core2 Duo 6600 ran the demo too choppily for it to be enjoyable on high settings. The main difference, as far as I can see, was him having an Nvidia 7600GS 512Mb (PCI-E) and me having an ATI x1950 512MB AGP. He had the latest Nvidia drivers and we both have 2Gb RAM (although mine is slower at only PC3200). Us single core AGP mofos can still cut it.

@Taofan - you need to confirm how fast your processor actually is. Is it 2.2Ghz clock speed, or is it 2.2Ghz equivalent, ie. "2200" and slower actual clock.

In any case, your 7300 card is not nearly good enough to make up for your processor's deficit.
 
Laivasse said:
@Taofan - you need to confirm how fast your processor actually is. Is it 2.2Ghz clock speed, or is it 2.2Ghz equivalent, ie. "2200" and slower actual clock.

In any case, your 7300 card is not nearly good enough to make up for your processor's deficit.
Click to expand...

Laivasse, System Properties on my WinXP states my computer as being "AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor, 3500+, 2.20GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM" and "Physical Address Extension", whatever the hell that means. Make of that what you will.

Yes, well, I don't have the dough or the inclination to splash out on a top-of-the-range 3D card to play a particular game. And besides, given a few years, these TOTR 3D cards will be reduced to a cheap price anyway - just play the game and enjoy it then.
 
TaoFan said:
Laivasse, System Properties on my WinXP states my computer as being "AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor, 3500+, 2.20GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM" and "Physical Address Extension", whatever the hell that means. Make of that what you will.

Yes, well, I don't have the dough or the inclination to splash out on a top-of-the-range 3D card to play a particular game. And besides, given a few years, these TOTR 3D cards will be reduced to a cheap price anyway - just play the game and enjoy it then.
Click to expand...

anything that you buy now and in a few years will probably go down in value so its not a valid arguement.
 
TaoFan said:
Laivasse, System Properties on my WinXP states my computer as being "AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor, 3500+, 2.20GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM" and "Physical Address Extension", whatever the hell that means. Make of that what you will.

Yes, well, I don't have the dough or the inclination to splash out on a top-of-the-range 3D card to play a particular game. And besides, given a few years, these TOTR 3D cards will be reduced to a cheap price anyway - just play the game and enjoy it then.
Click to expand...
That processor will cope with Bioshock fine as long as you have the right graphics card, maybe an extra Gb of RAM wouldn't hurt either.

Anyway, just as long as you're aware that it will struggle with current games unless you upgrade your graphics card as I did. I recently got rid of my old Radeon 9800 Pro and got a new PSU, mo' bettah RAM, and the sexy x1950 I have now, which is probably the best AGP card you can get unless Nvidia decide to release an AGP version of one of their TOTR's.

If you're going to wait a few years until you get a new card, your whole system (not just your graphics card) will probably be due for a complete overhaul by then anyway. Sure it's down to lazy, silly development choices on the PC side of things, since they aren't marketing their games to the real PC market, but it's the facts of life. Also, I suspect my rig with this card will take longer to become completely obsolete than is usual - it can run games to an Xbox 360 level (or near enough) and I think that until this generation of consoles dies out, graphics technology will plateau at around this level for a while, making upgrades less inescapable. So it's up to you.
 
All i know is that i was playing it. It kept having errors everytime i tried to load a certain level, tried to load an older saved game, an error occured and now my shortcut icons on my start menu and now missing.

Screw you whomever is responsible, go eat a dick.
 
Despite my earlier statement that the install caused no problems, I've had sporadic BSOD's (on a newly formatted comp, fresh install of windows) since installing the game. It could be due to some other background process, but the hidden nature of whatever secuROM is doing can't help but make me suspicious.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

elrasho
AMD or Intel based gaming rig?
Replies
26
Views
2K
-Psy-
-Psy-
elrasho
AMD or Intel based gaming rig?
Replies
1
Views
406
elrasho
elrasho
kupocake
Advice on selling / binning old PC.
Replies
12
Views
1K
Krynn72
Krynn72
BabyHeadCrab
What pc titles should I be hyped over? :p
Replies
35
Views
1K
BabyHeadCrab
BabyHeadCrab
pvtbones
BSG:Beyond the Redline Multiplayer Demo Released!
Replies
6
Views
1K
Lucid
Lucid
Back
Top