I want to show off

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Wed May 11, 2005 4:53 pm

Today I installed my new GeForce 6800 and hooked up my new 19" LCD monitor. But I don't own any action games or anything visually intense to show it off. Please recommend a demo or other free download that will give me some visual kicks.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Wed May 11, 2005 4:59 pm

Is there anything out there more visually impressive than Half Life 2?

shaggydoug · Post by **shaggydoug** » Wed May 11, 2005 5:09 pm

Ironrod wrote:Today I installed my new GeForce 6800 and hooked up my new 19" LCD monitor. But I don't own any action games or anything visually intense to show it off. Please recommend a demo or other free download that will give me some visual kicks.

Far Cry demo as well. You should have gotten the Ultra though. You could have done HDR in it.

- shaggy

SlapBone · Post by **SlapBone** » Wed May 11, 2005 5:23 pm

I think Riddick has a demo, and it was I used to show off my new 6800 about a week ago (as well as the ones mentioned above).

JayG · Post by **JayG** » Wed May 11, 2005 5:36 pm

The everquest 2 demo is pretty nice, with a lot of stuff designed for state of the art graphic cards.

ChrisGwinn · Post by **ChrisGwinn** » Wed May 11, 2005 6:16 pm

wonderpug wrote:Is there anything out there more visually impressive than Half Life 2?

No. There might be things that have some more impressive graphics tech, but I'd say that nothing looks better. The combination of engine, artist skill, and art direction is unmatched.

Fretmute · Post by **Fretmute** » Wed May 11, 2005 6:30 pm

ChrisGwinn wrote:
wonderpug wrote:Is there anything out there more visually impressive than Half Life 2?
No. There might be things that have some more impressive graphics tech, but I'd say that nothing looks better. The combination of engine, artist skill, and art direction is unmatched.

I'm of the opinion that the Doom 3 engine is more robust, but it's largely wasted in rendering levels that are dynamicly lit by a single candle.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Wed May 11, 2005 8:35 pm

My 6800GT came with Far Cry. I played it about 30 minutes and was bored with it. It did look nice, I guess.

I don't think I've played anything else on it that my old 4600 couldn't handle without stressing a transistor.

ChrisGwinn · Post by **ChrisGwinn** » Wed May 11, 2005 10:00 pm

Fretmute wrote:
ChrisGwinn wrote:
wonderpug wrote:Is there anything out there more visually impressive than Half Life 2?
No. There might be things that have some more impressive graphics tech, but I'd say that nothing looks better. The combination of engine, artist skill, and art direction is unmatched.
I'm of the opinion that the Doom 3 engine is more robust, but it's largely wasted in rendering levels that are dynamicly lit by a single candle.

I don't know enough about computer graphics to be able to make determinations about the competing engines. I just know that HL2 is really impressive visually.

I'm looking forward to seeing Doom 3's engine used by something with art direction more to my tastes.

Kobra · Post by **Kobra** » Wed May 11, 2005 10:02 pm

Ironrod wrote:Today I installed my new GeForce 6800 and hooked up my new 19" LCD monitor. But I don't own any action games or anything visually intense to show it off. Please recommend a demo or other free download that will give me some visual kicks.

Riddick for PC, or perhaps GTR if you have it. (demo of GTR sux, graphics are toned down, need main game)

JSHAW · Post by **JSHAW** » Wed May 11, 2005 10:48 pm

Someone PLEASE tell me WTF is GTR?

In another thread it was called Grand Theft Rickshaw...What in the hell is this GTR game???

magic · Post by **magic** » Wed May 11, 2005 11:09 pm

JSHAW wrote:Someone PLEASE tell me WTF is GTR?

In another thread it was called Grand Theft Rickshaw...What in the hell is this GTR game???

GTR is a racing sim by SimBin AG. It doesn't stand for anything, except GTR. It simulates modern GT Racing in Europe, with cars such as Ferraris, Porsches, Lister Storm, etc.

here's a snippet of one shot:

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed May 11, 2005 11:36 pm

I'm trying to decide if I want to pick up GTR. I recently acquired a copy of Gran Turismo 4 and the Driving Force Pro wheel for the PS2. I'm not a big fan of the game itself, but I love that wheel. I've heard that the wheel works on the PC with GTR, but I'm going to test it out with the demo first. If it works, I may have to pick up a copy. May also have to get Richard Burns Rally.

Bertran · Post by **Bertran** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:15 am

Dragging this back on topic just a bit...

Ironrod, one thing that you could download is a benchmarking program called 3Dmark - looks like you can get the free version here. It runs a series of very graphically-intense sequences in order to test your system's 3d performance (not that you need to be that concerned with the final score, if you don't play lots of 3d action games). The sequences aren't games (in other words, they're non-interactive), but this probably represents the best 3d graphics that you can check out with a free download.

Grundbegriff · Post by **Grundbegriff** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:26 am

magic wrote:It doesn't stand for anything, except GTR. It simulates modern GT Racing

Doesn't that suggest that GTR stands for Gran Turismo Racing?

Sterling · Post by **Sterling** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:38 am

shaggydoug wrote:
Ironrod wrote:Today I installed my new GeForce 6800 and hooked up my new 19" LCD monitor. But I don't own any action games or anything visually intense to show it off. Please recommend a demo or other free download that will give me some visual kicks.
Far Cry demo as well. You should have gotten the Ultra though. You could have done HDR in it.

- shaggy

Eh? The cores of all 6800's are the same, they're just rated at different speeds. They all have the same feature support, the Ultra will just run things slightly faster than a GT.

Unless there's a game I don't know about that checks the video card's BIOS and only enables HDR when an Ultra is detected? If so, I want to check it out and see what my Ultra can do.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Thu May 12, 2005 10:03 am

Thanks for your suggestions. I am downloading the HL2 demo now, and will also look at the Riddick demo and 3DMark.

When I ran an nVidia demo program called Clear Sailing, it not only ran like a slideshow, it apparently damaged some other program files on exit. These "real" demos will tell me whether their program or my system is at fault.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Thu May 12, 2005 10:14 am

Grundbegriff wrote:
magic wrote:It doesn't stand for anything, except GTR. It simulates modern GT Racing
Doesn't that suggest that GTR stands for Gran Turismo Racing?

Sort of. But if one googled "Gran Turismo Racing" they'd come up with a lot fewer relevant links to the game in question than a google search on "GTR."

The publisher's name for the game is "GTR," afterall. Personally, I think that's an unfortunate name, but these things aren't up to me.

~Neal

JonathanStrange · Post by **JonathanStrange** » Thu May 12, 2005 11:05 am

Half Life 2 and Far Cry both were very visually appealing and I would be hard pressed to suggest anything else right now that were outrageously better. Enjoy.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Thu May 12, 2005 11:13 am

I'll second 3dmark. Aquamark is ok too, I think it's mostly Aquanox2 rendering. HL2 and Farcry both have demos. Morrowind with some of the enhancement packs can be quite pretty too.

And I'll chime in on GTR. It does stand for Gran Turismo Racing. Even if not explicitly stated. NHL 2K5 is actually National Hockey League 2005 even though ESPN simply calls it NHL 2K5. Similarly googling the full "name" will return less relevant results than the short name. Even more so were there actually a 2005 season.

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