Gaming Max Payne 3 graphics analysis

If you look on Steam, that's what they recommend.

Is the executable 64 bit? if not... lol, just lol.

 

Is anyone else having horrible install times from DVD?
I've been at it now for almost two hours and I'm only up to Disc 3 (of 4).
It spins up the DVD and reads from the disc, then it stops for up to 5-10 minutes. The HDD status light shows there is activity happening during this time, so I suppose it is unpacking files to the HDD.
As it is to a SSD there is no mechanical HDD noise to tell me something is happening.

When the DVD is spinning the CPU usage goes up to about 25-30% on a single core (CPU is a quad core) and RAM usage slowly goes up by 200MB (it isn't using anywhere near all of the available 8GB). When the DVD spins down the CPU usage drops to 0 again and the RAM usage drops back down again. Then it sits and vegetates until it happens all over again. I would have thought that unpacking compressed files to the SSD during the quiet times would be using the CPU.

 

Well, that was 2 hours and 45 minutes I'm never going to get back, but at least now I can...oh, you've got to download some patches...three patches already? And you can't do anything until you've downloaded them? Well, make it snappy.
You aren't fast enough, but I forgive you because they are a reasonable size and not like some that another nameless developer releases that demands you download half the freaking game again every time they add some moronic hat I didn't want, don't want and will never, EVER want.

 

Sorry but the difference between low and ultimate is the same-ol' same-ol' we've had for years. You get initialising and better shadows... maybe better water effects if you're lucky and like splashing about in molten acrylic.

Can anyone actually say the highest settings generate a more realistic and immersive experience?

I feel games are (by necessity) being developed for the lowest common denominator and then tweaked with filters, effects and the occasional texture and/or vertex bump.

Someone please give us some truly impressive graphics!

 

I feel that there's not a great deal of difference between games using DX9, 10 or 11. Each new directX seems to bring very subtle graphical improvements, which is hardly satisfactory considering that one must buy a new graphics card each time.

 

The game is great but MSAA appears to be broken in this game or highly ineffective in my testing as can be seen in my post here which compares different combinations of FXAA and/or MSAA: http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=4333270&postcount=59

Notice that 0xMSAA + FXAA=Very High actually offers significantly better anti-aliasing than 4xMSAA + FXAA=Very High... which doesn't seem right at all.

 

I think I am going to wait and get this in a year or two (or three ^ ^) with everything included for a cheap price. Max Payne series hasn't really jumped out at me to be honest... I still haven't completed Max Payne 1 or 2...Besides I hate it when companies add planned DLC and then charge the price of a full game. Totally unjustifiable in my opinion.

Having said that, I think GTA V will be the exception and I hope R* makes it on a similar engine i.e. nice enough visuals, without demanding specs (aren't I kind, thinking of other people) & one that does not have so many issues at release date.

 

This is a "graphics analysis" article, and all you offer are a few screenshots of the graphics presets? Man, bit-tech, how things have changed.

 

Downloading it now.

My internet connection is crying with pain. It has been downloading all night when I was in bed, and I am still only half way there...

Be interesting to see how much RAM this uses, and as someone said earlier whether is actually has a 64 bit executable.

My initial feeling is that recommending 16GB of RAM is totally marketing hype and it will never use anywhere close to that much.

Also, be interested to see how well multi threaded the game is - seeing as they are recommending an 8 core processor. Again, my gut feeling is that it will not in reality scale well over four cores.

As was pointed out above, 2 pages is not exactly a graphical analysis - more of a teaser or an extended news article.

Where are the frame rate tests with different cards, and CPUs. Where is the multi threading analysis or the extensive screenshots?

Still, I enjoyed the article, so well done for that.

 

It's funny that this article was about graphics, because I installed MP3 yesterday, and was so angry at the crappy graphics! Let me explain, when the game starts, you can't change the graphic options until after the intro. So the entire time I was watching the intro, I couldn't concentrate on the story or character development, all I could think about was the 640x480 default resolution and the big blocky pixels! It wasn't until the intro story was over and the game begins, that I could crank-up all of the graphic options. I huge oversight on the part of Rockstar IMHO.

 

^That's the most pathetic thing I've ever read lol

 

It wasn't until after the intro and I was able to change the settings so that the game was full-screen. Until then it was windowed. And slightly (by a cm or so) out of the screen. Alt-Tabbing to desktop to move it only sent me back into the game.

It doesn't seem to be too demanding. Max settings at 1920x1200 on a HD6950.

 

Then I will spare you the story of my last blind date.

 

curme, Yes it would have been better if we could change the settings before that but I just closed my eyes & took headphones off until I could get to the options & change them to restart, happens in quite a few games that.

 

Well been playing with MP3 this afternoon on mt GTX570 and 2500k.

First of all the game runs a 32 executable...

CPU: No problems the game multi threads extremely well over four cores and never comes close to being CPU limited.

GPU:

Its a killer if you max absolutely everything. The worst problem seems to be no support in game for triple buffering. I get frame rates locked to 30 fps a lot - and this is something that has not happened to me for a long time in modern games. I guess I could use 3d overidder but I am not keen on this.

*edit* seems enabling triple buffering in nvidia driver does work (though is a bit temperamental). This makes the game much better. The 570 delivers minimum frame rates in the 40s now with everything maxed - so nice and smooth.

There seems to be some other bugs as well, such as in game vertical sync not working during game start up and on some menus. Disabling in game and forcing in driver sorted this out.

There is a nice article on HardOCP about MP3 graphics. In particular read the discussion for details on how mixing MSAA and FXAA seems to be break AA - which is something I have definitely found to be true.

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/06/01/max_payne_3_iq_performance_preview_reviewers_guide/3

Also nvidia has a nice article with interactive images of different anti aliasing techniques.

http://www.geforce.co.uk/optimise/guides/max-payne-3-benchmarked-in-a-new-york-minute/#1

Going to tweak the settings now to try to get a steady 60 fps.

 

character models might be hi-res, but get the camera close to walls and you'll see the same pixelated mess you get with low-res textures.
retail copy is on 4 discs, how large would a game if it's all high resolution?

 

Good point but I still enjoyed it throughout, the gunplay is pretty damn perfect & it does look excellent overall, voice acting & sound & overall mood of the game is perfect, is that tessellation used on the bullet exit wounds, it does look like it to me.

Hope they get GTA V released in a similar time-frame as they did this for PC & not the typical year later they have been doing for it, I can't hold out that long for a PC version & it spoils the experience for when it gets released.

Tempted to play through it again already but I should be modding. I'll do some modding & then some of this again.

 

This is my first time playing one of the Max Payne games...
IMO its a decent game, good story, good graphics (maxed out on a GTX 580) 1920x1200.
However, the actual gameplay and character control is one of the worst ever! (keyboard and mouse)
I know its a port from a console but are they so crap when it comes to this?!

 

Looks console-ish. Not really "one of the best looking shooters" out there. GTA 4 looks similar but better in my opinion. Give us another 2007 crysis bump in graphics and were talking.

 

totally agree, for me at least no MSAA and very high FXAA produces better anti-aliasing than with MSAA enabled. also the game becomes much less of a recourse hog, consistently over 60 fps with OC'ed 570 on 1080p.