New Demo VS Old Demo

[x-dANGEr]

What gave you the impression that I said that "including a large sector of the market" is wrong? I simply said, it is wrong to do it by wrecking down Graphics for everyone. They should have kept the graphics, but included options that allow SSE1 CPUs to run the game but on the expense of graphics level.

[Orda Khan]

wrecking down Graphics

Graphics are wrecked? Bit of an exaggeration there

.....Orda

[PROMETHEUS]

Not wrecked .... just toned a bit down ....

here is new Demo grass a bit less as you can see....

https://img218.imageshack.us/img218/...ollina2rv9.jpg

Here is the old Demo grass , a bit more dense , also you could pan more down as visual....

https://img53.imageshack.us/img53/44...avicinotp9.jpg

here of the bloom effect on old demo ...

https://img189.imageshack.us/img189/...necchi2il5.jpg

here on the new Demo as you can see its toned down ...

https://img189.imageshack.us/img189/...necchi2il5.jpg


I have to rectify about the texture , they seem to be the same quality at high , plus , the reflections where as well barely visible as in the first as in the second .....the trees too look similar as density , probably shadows have been retouched , grass looks less dense as befoure and camera pan could go more down ....
bloom effect decreased
blood effect improved but toned down and no more blood spread when hit (I liked befoure a lot)
flamed people now look better ...
AI I am not sure is better since I won Otumba by rushing only and in Pavia a french unit was attaking by giving the backs to my Lansdziwiser or how they are spelled ....plus some units have been substituited and look better ,

So far what I would fix is

Put back blood and Bloom , grass density , finishing moves .....



Another annoying thing I noticed is that longbowmen taqke exaclty 8-10 seconds to AIM .... this is crazy .... check it out in Agincourt....


and on a side note on none of the demo the corpes on field are 3d and put a real obstacle .....as instead said in the features by CA....

[x-dANGEr]

Graphics are wrecked? Bit of an exaggeration there

.....Orda

Maybe, but is true.. (The whole meaning of the statement I mean)

[Orda Khan]

Sorry Prometheus, after studying those pics I fail to see any major complaint. The trees in the first pic are a bit 'fuller' but I see nothing that bad with the comparison. IMO the second example without bloom is a far better picture. The first looks like it is over exposed

....Orda

[Ituralde]

Is it me or did Prometheus links the same picture twice for showing the Bloom difference?
At least the URLs are the same and I noticed no difference between them at all.

[doc_bean]

Bah, the demo CRAWLS on the system I tried it on (2.4ghz pentium, 512ùb Ram, Radeon 9600) with everthing on low. I didn't even play it...

[Lusted]

From those pics i can say that if there are any differences, they are minimal from the looks of it.

[wraithdt]

I find the differences quite minimal too and the graphics still look stunning.

[CBR]

The last two pics have identical URL


CBR

[x-dANGEr]

Just to clarify, I haven't played the second demo, but through the various complaints I read, it appears it has lost Graphics quality since the first one, thus my posts above.

[screwtype]

GAH, I can't believe this, I just finished DL'ing the demo (took me six hours) and tried playing the Agincourt battle - it is literally a slideshow! Completely unplayable.

I have an Athlon 64, 1 Gig RAM, ATI 9800 Pro.

Obviously the first thing to try is to tweak the graphic settings, but this is very discouraging! It's far worse even than RTW when I first got it, and that was when I only had a 1 Gig Celeron with 256 Mb of RAM!

Update: Tried turning shadows off and it was much better. I lost the battle - got Henry killed. Can someone remind me how to zoom in on the action? I don't want to sit through the whole tutorial to find out!

First impressions are okay though. The melee combat certainly seems to last plenty long enough. That was the thing I was most worried about. And the units don't seem to be moving too fast - another very important issue. In fact it does look very much as though "classic" TW battle pace has been restored to the game. Looks like about the only thing left to worry about then is the quality of the AI, and there's no telling about that from the demo, since it's scripted.

Some of the animations are ridiculous though. I saw one heavily armoured French knight actually do a backward somersault when struck a blow by an opponent. Yeesh! How stoopid is that. Not very keen on the unit colour schemes either. Too garish. The English look particularly wrong, in their yucky orange-and-yellow. Is this an example of the Aussies taking revenge against their former colonial masters? But the colours are certainly better than they were in Rome, which isn't saying much.

All in all though, my first impressions are more positive than I anticipated. I find myself reconsidering a full price purchase of this game. But all the same, I think I'll still wait until the community has had more time to assess the gameplay.

[screwtype]

IMO the second example without bloom is a far better picture. The first looks like it is over exposed

....Orda

Which reminds me - what exactly is bloom? I saw it in the graphics options but left it on since I didn't know what it was.

[PROMETHEUS]

Yes my bad , I uploaded two times the same pic for the Landszichnecht or whats written like ... anyway the bloom effect looked better in first demo .... much better .... and about reflections they are missing on both ....

[Orda Khan]

Can someone remind me how to zoom in on the action? I don't want to sit through the whole tutorial to find out!

Try the wheel on your mouse

........Orda

[x-dANGEr]

IMO the second example without bloom is a far better picture. The first looks like it is over exposed

Lol.. It's the same picture

[screwtype]

Try the wheel on your mouse

........Orda

Mice don't have wheels At least, mine doesn't.

I probably just need to look at the keyboard shortcut screen, that should tell me what the commands are. But thanks anyhow

[Zenicetus]

Which reminds me - what exactly is bloom? I saw it in the graphics options but left it on since I didn't know what it was.

It's an effect that adds a "glow" on highlights in the graphics, if your video card has the hardware to support it. Try turning it off, then back on, and you'll see the effect.

I can't stand it myself... it looks like I'm viewing the scene through a dirty camera lens. It's an over-used effect in many modern computer games. I think some developers use it just because it's available on the card, and not for any real aesthetic reason. At least it can be disabled in M2TW, which I appreciate. I know some people like it.

[screwtype]

It's an effect that adds a "glow" on highlights in the graphics, if your video card has the hardware to support it. Try turning it off, then back on, and you'll see the effect.

I can't stand it myself... it looks like I'm viewing the scene through a dirty camera lens. It's an over-used effect in many modern computer games. I think some developers use it just because it's available on the card, and not for any real aesthetic reason. At least it can be disabled in M2TW, which I appreciate. I know some people like it.

Hmm, yeah, that does sound like something I probably don't need. I'll try disabling it to see what difference it makes. With a bit of luck it might actually improve things, the colours all looked a tad garish to me anyhow

[Orda Khan]

Lol.. It's the same picture

Yes.......I noticed you picked up on it too But there, it only serves to reiterate how minimal the 'wrecked' graphics are

Screwtype
I can't remember either m8. Did you try * and - above the number pad?

....Orda

[wraithdt]

Hmm, yeah, that does sound like something I probably don't need. I'll try disabling it to see what difference it makes. With a bit of luck it might actually improve things, the colours all looked a tad garish to me anyhow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_%28shader_effect%29

That pretty much explains what bloom is.

[screwtype]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_%28shader_effect%29

That pretty much explains what bloom is.

Hmm, sounds to me like turning it off may well reduce the garishness of colour that I don't like. Might save a few GPU cycles too.

That's assuming my Radeon 9800 Pro actually has the bloom capability - if it does, I've never read about it. Maybe I'm not getting bloom effects anyhow. I'll have to play the demo over again to find out.

I guess it might also explain why some folks feel the graphics are worse in the new demo - maybe bloom wasn't enabled in the original and is now. Because one of the effects is apparently a blurring of the image. The solution then might just be to turn off bloom and see if that restores the detail some people feel they have lost.

[BDC]

I like bloom. Things are far too clean and clinical otherwise. Makes it a bit messier. Covers up jagged lines too...

If I had a card which could cope with high AA then I probably wouldn't be so bothered.

[econ21]

GAH, I can't believe this, I just finished DL'ing the demo (took me six hours) and tried playing the Agincourt battle - it is literally a slideshow! Completely unplayable.

I have an Athlon 64, 1 Gig RAM, ATI 9800 Pro.

I have the same card and RAM & found the first demo hard going - have you gone to the graphics setting and made sure you have "shader 1" selected? x-danger gave me that hint () and it dramatically improved things for me.

[Puzz3D]

New Demo played fine on my AthlonXP 2400+ cpu (2.0 GHz), 1 GB RAM and ATI 9800 Pro Radeon with the new Catalyst 6.9 video driver. I used shader 1, no AA, bilinear filtering, high building detail, medium unit detail and low grass detail.

[Tellos Athenaios]

To me the new demo is a real improvement. Simply because the old one refused to load, and the new one does not.

[ProudNerd]

Which reminds me - what exactly is bloom? I saw it in the graphics options but left it on since I didn't know what it was.

bloom adds luster and radiance to the graphics metal becomes very bright and literately glows and everything has an over exposed dream like quality. i prefer bloom off since it looks much more realistic. but bloom is a very pretty and interesting effect.

[edyzmedieval]

A totally wierd difference.

Compared to the old demo, I sense that CA wanted to make a more graphical approach. They improved the graphics(fonts are smaller now) and also, they changed the scripting of Pavia for instance, but still, you can defeat the enemy.

[screwtype]

I have the same card and RAM & found the first demo hard going - have you gone to the graphics setting and made sure you have "shader 1" selected? x-danger gave me that hint () and it dramatically improved things for me.

Um, not sure what I did, but whatever it was it improved the gamespeed hugely

I think it was turning off shadows that did the trick though...

[maestro]

You get worse graphics so all those AMD FX owners can play the game

I've got an FX and never had truoble with the old demo - or am I misunderstanding you?

bloom adds luster and radiance to the graphics metal becomes very bright and literately glows and everything has an over exposed dream like quality. i prefer bloom off since it looks much more realistic. but bloom is a very pretty and interesting effect.

I totally agree with ya about keeping bloom off. For me it's just a really lame and simple interpretation of HDR