While the day of the Prey demo has come and gone for the PC players it has still yet to grace the Xbox 360. While 3d realms admits that the game demo was done, they said that the release was all up to Microsoft not them. So as I sit here talking to you guys that have an Xbox 360 and not a good PC, I can safely say the Prey Demo was awesome, though it was a bit short, I have a lot to look forward to in it’s summer release.
CVG.com reports the demo will be released on July 2nd this Sunday for the Xbox 360. While the value of those words may not be entirely known until the second I think it is save to say that Microsoft really needs to get this demo on the system.
However while this may sound all fine and dandy it really isn’t as PixelGamers reported early this week the Xbox 360 version of the game will be lacking in terms of performance. When I say lacking, I mean that the demo is expected to run at about 30 FPS, for those of you that don’t know what that means you need not worry, however the PC version runs at a steady 60 FPS. I find this all very interesting considering the fact that game runs on the Doom 3 engine, and for those of you that remember, Doom 3 came out on the original Xbox. So why now does a game running on that same engine still lack in FPS?
Despite all this I guess time will tell, I don’t currently own an Xbox 360 but my local skateshop has one and I will be sure to get up there and try and get the demo, but at the Internet connection of that place I fear it will not be possible. So in the meantime I will continue to enjoy my PC demo :P.
June 30th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
I don’t really know how they can claim a steady framerate for a PC game. I mean, I would expect that if I decked out my PC that I could get 60 FPS, but what the heck would that cost? You’d have to have a monster set up to hit that, honestly. The quote that site has actually says “capped”… which means that’s the highest you’re gonna get, not necessarily what you will get. I also have to mention that Quake 4 on the 360 is never “unplayable” in my experience, despite what this guy says. There’s some framerate drops, but they’re more than tolerable.
With Doom 3, you kind of have to remember that the game was scaled back dramatically on Xbox. It looks good, but nowhere as good as it’d look on a PC with the recommend specs. It might be the same overall engine, but comparing it between Xbox and Xbox 360 is basically like comparing it between a Radeon 8600 and whatever the heck is best now.
Anyway, I actually saw the demo was added in the US today at 3PM. I’m downloading it now. It’s pretty huge at 1.2 GB, but at least it is single and multiplayer…
June 30th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Yeah I have seen the “cap” on fps for a long time now, like counter-strike 1.6 maxes out at 100 fps, which is by all means plenty for any human being. However when it comes to the lower rates things become noticable. While the game is said to run at 30 fps, I am very interested to see the multiplayer on the 360 maintain that.
And you really don’t need a hardcore computer to run the game, I ran doom 3 on some of the higher end settings, and had zero problem running the prey demo to the fullest amount, and this computer is 2 years old.
What darth over at pixelgamers was getting to though, was that if the system can only dish out 30fps on a doom3 engine, it is really a wonder that it can do any better with some of the higher end games that are coming out.
Especially when the 360 has only been out a year, I wonder if it is even capable of running a game like crysis (by the far the most graphically intense fps to ever be created.. coming to pc only at the moment)