My quick review

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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theLuckyDragon
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Unread postby theLuckyDragon » 17 May 2006, 19:27

Romanov77 wrote:I know that my videocard sucks...I didnt belive I could run this game too, until I downloaded the demo...
Same here... :sweat:
But seeing that I won't buy the game anytime soon, it's not much of an issue for me right now. :)
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Romanov77
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Unread postby Romanov77 » 17 May 2006, 19:40

DaemianLucifer wrote:@Wolfshanze

This is a turn based strategy,so its graphics shouldnt be its primary concern.It should be able to run smoothly on low end computers(though without eye candy).And our money problems actually are ubisofts concern,since we wont buy a game we cannot play.
You CH veterans have a much greater influence over UBI, could you help us to ask them to optimize?

Im not asking to play the game on "medium" setting...Im just asking to play decently even at "Very low"... I dont care about graphics, I care for the gameplay, which seems to be very good in HommV.

I will repeat till death, its a simple issue with large maps with lots of trees, the rest works fine even on "medium", expecially the combat screen which looks and works gorgeously.
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Unread postby Wolfshanze » 17 May 2006, 19:45

Romanov... no problem... I thought I was stating an obvious... the reason the game wasn't running because of a sub-par video card. If I came across as harsh, I apologize, but really, what does one expect of an FX5200 card?
DaemianLucifer wrote:@Wolfshanze

This is a turn based strategy,so its graphics shouldnt be its primary concern.It should be able to run smoothly on low end computers(though without eye candy).And our money problems actually are ubisofts concern,since we wont buy a game we cannot play.
Okay... so what's your point DL? Are you trying to say TURN-BASED = AUTOMATICALLY CRUMMY GRAPHICS THAT RUN ON OLD NON-GAMING HARDWARE?

Pardon Ubi-Soft for trying to make a game not look so dated... just because it's turn-based means it HAS to have either 2D or poor graphics. You making YOUR OWN definition of what the game should be. It's not like HOMM5 going to 3D is news. This has been known for a LOOOONG time, so obviously if it's going 3D, you're going to want a decent 3D graphics card.

If you think money problems of the world are Ubi-Soft's problem (along with every other gaming company out there), we'd never see Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, FEAR, Age of Empires, and a TON of other games, because gaming companies are usually trying to push the envelope... if not, we'd all still be playing PONG.

I don't remember seeing any golden rule writen by the hand of God which says "turn-based gaming MUST remain compatible with outdated systems".

Look... if it's got sloppy coding and memory leaks, I'm the first guy in-line to say "fix it Ubi-Soft". This game apparently does have at least a memory leak (a lot of games do these days). But just because it's a turn-based game, doesn't mean it MUST be 2D and MUST run smoothly on a Pentium-90 with no video acceleration because Joe Schmoe can't afford a new computer. For every Joe Schmoe out there with a Pentium-90, there's other guys out there with more current systems who'd actually like to enjoy the hardware they've got and don't want to be hampered by a poor looking game because somebody else can't afford to upgrade.

I'm not rich... far from it... there's plenty of folks with snazzier systems then mine, I'll be the first to admit it, and I can't afford to upgrade now... but when I could afford a system, I sure didn't low-ball my video card... I got a GAMING CARD that would last awhile. I'm broke now... but I can still enjoy good gaming.

Ubi-Soft is just doing what every other gaming company does... they keep up with the times... just because Joe Schmoe can't afford it, doesn't mean it's Ubi's personal responsibility to low-ball the game's specs.

Once again... they need to fix the memory leaks and any other sloppy coding... but folks with outdated and/or non-gaming cards shouldn't be blaming Ubi-Soft for not making the graphics look like 1995's HOMM-1.

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Unread postby dragonn » 17 May 2006, 19:56

@Wolfshanze

But Nival said the game will be playable for even older machines, and by older I think they didn't mean 1 years old. I'll tell you what. In my opinion the game could be more optimalized. Etherlords, which are quite an old game, had astonishing graphic, and the game ran smoothly on my old GF 2 TI on full detail 1024*768. And the graphics were quite similiar to those of HV, I think that the Etherlords engine could have been even used for HV...

I don't say the game should have an old 2D graphics, because sooner or later Heroes would have to change into 3D. I just say, it should be more optimalized...
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 17 May 2006, 19:56

@Wolfshanze

No,it means that gameplay should be a priority,and then graphics.It also means that it should be very optimizible.Besides,just because a game has beautiful 3D doesnt mean that you need top notch equipment just to view it.

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Unread postby Wolfshanze » 17 May 2006, 21:28

DaemianLucifer wrote:@Wolfshanze

No,it means that gameplay should be a priority,and then graphics.It also means that it should be very optimizible.Besides,just because a game has beautiful 3D doesnt mean that you need top notch equipment just to view it.
Absolutely right... and last time I checked, HOMMV is waaaaaaaaaaaay easier on the hardware then something like F.E.A.R. or Quake-4. HOMMV doesn't require a top-notch system to run well... but at the same time, I wouldn't toss a FX5200 at any game (even in 2003) and expect it to run well.

Personally, I think Nival did an absolutely outstanding job at what hardware should be required (enough to look good, but not so much to need to spend thousands on a new system like FEAR or QUAKE4). Heck, even AoE-III requires a lot more hardware then HOMMV... What do you guys want for hardware requirements? Solitaire-level?!??!

There are memory leaks in the game... they need to be addressed, but those of you who are holding onto your $30 video cards from years ago need to rethink your gaming needs and expectations.

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Unread postby Khelavaster » 17 May 2006, 21:37

Here are my specs:

Athlon XP 2500+ Barton,
1 Gig RAM
Geforce 6600 GT 128

I´d say, given that I can run Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Call of Duty 2 and the Rise of Legends demo without a hitch, that my machine can handle pretty much any current-gen game out there, even when the processor speed is not the optimal.

It´s only ironic then that HOMMV, a TURN BASED GAME, proves to be a bit too much for it. The map stutters noticeably when rotating the cam, not brutally so but enough to make handling heroes around the map a chore. Changing the settings offers little help, as it's been reported by other users, as if the problem was not related to the settings' values.

I hate to say this but it does bring memories of another game which was nearly unplayable in my then perfectly decent rig, Silent Storm, also developed by... Nival.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 17 May 2006, 21:51

Wolfshanze wrote:
Absolutely right... and last time I checked, HOMMV is waaaaaaaaaaaay easier on the hardware then something like F.E.A.R. or Quake-4.
Ur kiding me right? Comparing it to a bloody FPS? And Q4 worked better on my computer then HoMM5 anyway.
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Unread postby theGryphon » 17 May 2006, 22:07

I don't know if it's a memory leak or not but I know that the game slows down after having played like 3 hours. I remember once I played a HII hotseat for 22 hours straight (that was arguably the best day of my life :)). I hope I'll be able to do it with HV. So, please Fabrice/Ubi/Nival optimize the code. Damn I thought the game would fly with my system :sad:
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Unread postby Continuity » 17 May 2006, 22:21

A little tip I found that helped abit (although it was already smooth and near-perfect on my 2 GHz, 512Mb RAM, Radeon 9600 128Mb machine):

Set your resolution in-game to the same resolution as your desktop, even if it's higher. My game ran even smoother at 1280x960 (the same as my desktop resolution) than it did at 1024x768.

For the record I'm using no AA, no AF and Very High Quality. I have not checked the "No Eyecandies" box.

Also, I should note that the game runs better here than the demo did.

So basically, I'm ecstatic. I love the game so far, too.

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Unread postby Cold Fingers » 17 May 2006, 22:29

Its very painfuly obvious that game engine is not optimised very well.
My specs are:
P4 3.0 Ghz
1 Gb of ram
Gforce 6600 gt

and the game runs pretty good , but there are stutters sometimes when i rotate camera, and sometimes slowdowns occur after few hours of playing...
Not to mention that HV works exactly the same on 1024*768/normal image quality/no eyecandy/fsaa off and antistropic off and on 1024*768/very high/fsaa and antistropic on max...I dont get it.It seems only thing that really impacts performance is shadow quality that can be adjusted in config file.

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Unread postby Malicen » 17 May 2006, 22:43

Well I would really like someone to explain me why does H5 works on Ati Radeon 9000Pro with 64MB?

Right you are, that is my video card. And I play H5 in lowes detail and it works great. No choppings. The only time I waited for a while was while loading the scene when Agrael captured Isabel.
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Unread postby Wolfshanze » 17 May 2006, 22:51

Because even an ATI 9000 Pro is better then an FX5200... the NVidia FX line as a whole was poorly conceived and barely able to run DX9 applications. The FX5200 is the bottom-feeder of the FX line... put the two together and that's why even an ATI 9000 Pro will run the game better. As for the memory, once-again, each generation of cards uses a specific amount well... anything beyond that is pure marketing fluff and doesn't do anything if the graphics card is GPU-limited... if the GPU is using 64MBs and is at full capacity, extra memory won't do squat... such is the case with a card like the FX5200 with 256MB... to be honest, anything beyond 64MB on that card is a waste.

NVidia did much better with the entire "6" series of cards (and again with the "7" series)... but the FX series in hind-sight must be looked on as a failure... and low-end FX cards are even worse. ATI's 9X00 series of cards was always better then the FX line.

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Unread postby magritte2 » 18 May 2006, 00:21

Coldfingers, the fact that antialiasing and anisotropic filtering make no difference to your performance makes me wonder whether the video card is the issue at all. It doesn't seem like it should be your memory or CPU, because you're ahead of me on memory and on par with CPU. Could you have something running in the background that's intrfering? Maybe it's driver related and the ATI drivers are working much better than Nvidia's? I've noticed minor sluggishness with the 9800 Pro, but certainly nothing to interfere with gameplay. Someone said elsewhere that moving the view with the keys rather than the mouse seemed smoother.

Is the performance really that big an issue? It's not like an FPS where you have to be able to move quickly.

We went through more or less this same discussion on the Civ 4 boards recently. I don't know that 3-D really adds much to a game like HOMM V, but realistically in the marketplace, you need to give people a reason to fork over $50 for your game rather than Disciples 3, and if it doesn't look any better than 5-year old games like Etherlords, it's going to be a very tough sell. Why not just get a $10 game instead? The graphics are pretty much the only thing that's changed in strategy gaming in the last decade.

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Unread postby Cold Fingers » 18 May 2006, 00:24

I think u misunderstood me :)
The game works very good i have no performance related issues that affect gameplay, but the fact is the game doesnt look that good to have this kind of sys req imho.

Also, I think main reason for 3D in TBS's is need to attract new players.Ofcourse old fans fill buy the game even if it looked like crap and they know that, but they want attract new ppl to the game, the ones that maybe never played HoMM (if those ppl acctually exist :D )

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Unread postby asandir » 18 May 2006, 01:40

well ....

im runnning the sucker on an
Athlon 3500+
1 Gig corsair XMS
x850xt

and while i didn't notice any stutter issues the game just doesn't seem as smooth as it should, either with everything maxed, or with aa and af off ... only played for about 3 hours and didn't notice too much slowing down, not like h4 when it came out!!

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Unread postby Saurus » 18 May 2006, 06:15

Romanov77 wrote:
More Important:
3) The demo runs FINE even at Medium setting
The Retail MUST do the same, otherwise it would be a cheap trick by nival & ubi.

I agree and I'm a bit worried. I also have a low-end system barely meeting the minimum and I was suprised by the fact the demo did run so smoothly on my machine. It is very sad if the demo is able to run all the graphics perfectly while the full product is not cabable of this.

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asandir
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Unread postby asandir » 18 May 2006, 06:47

the difference isn't that the demo was dodgy or anything thou, just that the graphics intense forests weren't in the maps avail for the demo

still not very good thou

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Romanov77
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Unread postby Romanov77 » 18 May 2006, 06:50

I wont worry that much, Im sure that Ubi will optimize the game...

Heroes 4 had a memory leak too, and it was fixed...it will be the same with homm5.
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Unread postby asandir » 18 May 2006, 07:26

bring on the patch i say!!


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