Mafia 2

[Professor Puzzles]

I saw loads of people complaining about the gun sounds...loads of people complaining that things look too 'clean'. Someone was even complaining because the demo has a timer... I mean, what? Somehow many complainants manage to write paragraph after paragraph without specifying a single feature of the game.

The craziest thing is, the majority of the people there seem to think the original Mafia game was some sort of second coming in gaming. I thought it was average at best and generally very buggy and flawed (car race?). Although I did have GTA 3 by that time whilst most PC gamers didn't. Mafia was so comparatively stringent and anti-fun.

I decided to give the original another go on Sunday, but you have to do five dull taxi missions in a row before the actual proper game starts. You can't even go over the speed limit or run over someone without your fare complaining and having to restart the 'mission.' I uninstalled it soon after.

[AI]

Holy crap. That looks phenomenal. Do you use fraps, as a matter of curiosity? Its jsut that i normally use fraps to record all my gaming stuff, but for some reason all my screenshots/video in mafia 2 comes out corrupted in fraps

I had the same problem. Downloading the latest version of Fraps sorted it out though!

[Moz]

Well, with all the PhysX bells and whistles on, it looks this gorgeous:

Look at the shockwave on the jacket, and the broken glass going flying, and oh my Jesus I wish I had an nVidia card.

Err, as we speak, no-one has locked Physx down to Nvidia GPU processing in the demo - you can run Physx on the CPU too if you like.

Typically Physx rapes your frame rate for the sake of some gimmicky cloth - however, I might stick in my old 9600GT as a second card now that they've removed the ATI/NVidia lock. (Assuming that's correct, I can't find any info on it).

[Keyboard Koala]

In any case, I don't think that many people have played it, it was a bit of a niche game at the time.

Really loved the demo of this.

The original was def. flawed...

Still, it had tons of atmosphere, a great story (incl. a great ending), brilliant music. And judging from the demo, the sequel seems set to have that mix all over again...

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Err, as we speak, no-one has locked Physx down to Nvidia GPU processing in the demo - you can run Physx on the CPU too if you like.

I know that, but after seeing it completely destroy performance on my system in Mirror's Edge and Arkham Asylum, I'm not even going to try it out in other games!

[Mr. Gerbik]

2K responds to criticism over PS3 version of Mafia II

"When designing Mafia II, we optimized for each of the three different systems the game would run on to make sure the core experience was the best it could be. Because of this, there are some differences from one platform to the next."

“In terms of the PS3 version, I wanted to clarify a couple points you have been asking about: There will not be highly detailed grass or large pools of blood, the cloth movement is less noticeable than, for example, the PC version, and the visual fidelity in the demo is generally representative of what you’ll see in the full game.”

2K themselves kinda confirm here that the PS3 version is the one to avoid.

[Number 28]

Thinking back to those caps of Vito looking in the mirror...it's kinda weird how they use real-time reflections (I think) instead of the tried and tested 'clone through a hole' method, because even in the PC version you can see the resolution is seriously nerfed.

[Garibaldi]

That's a shame, PS3 always seems to suffer with open world games.

[Talk Show Host]

That's a shame, PS3 always seems to suffer with open world games.

It wasn't so bad with Red Dead Redemption If I remember correctly.

But that was one of the best game of recent times, technically superlative and made by a stupidly rich developer.

2K's response doesn't really say anything as to why the PS3 version seems to have such differences, which is pretty lame on their part.

We are not stupid, just come out and say that you didn't have the resources or something like that, something that seems more sincere.

I'm thinking of not buying the game just because of their response, even though I will be buying it for the 360.

[Kebabilicious]

I decided to give the original another go on Sunday, but you have to do five dull taxi missions in a row before the actual proper game starts. You can't even go over the speed limit or run over someone without your fare complaining and having to restart the 'mission.' I uninstalled it soon after.

But, but, but...The game gets so good after

[Professor Puzzles]

I think it was the driving in general that put me off the first one; I did get past the taxi missions and do a proper mission or two, but the combination of keyboard controls and 1930s trundlecars put me off.

[Kebabilicious]

I think it was the driving in general that put me off the first one; I did get past the taxi missions and do a proper mission or two, but the combination of keyboard controls and 1930s trundlecars put me off.

Yeah, the driving and controls were clunky and a bit of a pain, but if you can persevere, it's an amazing gaming experience.

Have you tried the console versions? It could be yours for pennies now i'm sure. Perhaps another forumite could shed some light on the console version. I never played it. Could be the perfect excuse to start the game all over again though

[Garibaldi]

I decided to give the original another go on Sunday, but you have to do five dull taxi missions in a row before the actual proper game starts. You can't even go over the speed limit or run over someone without your fare complaining and having to restart the 'mission.' I uninstalled it soon after.

There were five taxi missions in a row?

I gave up after the first two.

I appreciate what they were going for, it's a clever idea. Showing how mundane your character's low-paying, 'honest' job is so, along with him, you can't resist the temptation to get embroiled in lucrative criminal hijinks. In reality though it just led to a really weak series of opening missions.

[Kebabilicious]

There were five taxi missions in a row?

I gave up after the first two.

I appreciate what they were going for, it's a clever idea. Showing how mundane your character's low-paying, 'honest' job is so, along with him, you can't resist the temptation to get embroiled in lucrative criminal hijinks. In reality though it just led to a really weak series of opening missions.

I think that's a valid criticism. They did "nail home" the whole "low paying job" thing. The thing is, the reason the taxi missions dragged on was not because there was five of them. No. They dragged on because they driving was horrendous!

I love that game though. The storyline

[BrerLappin]

I think that's a valid criticism. They did "nail home" the whole "low paying job" thing. The thing is, the reason the taxi missions dragged on was not because there was five of them. No. they dragged on because they driving was horrendous!

I got as far as the racing car section which was, as far as i can recall, glitched and impossible to win. Or at least, next to impossible to win, until a patch eventually came out for it. I never got further than that, either way

[Kebabilicious]

I got as far as the racing car section which was, as far as i can recall, glitched and impossible to win. Or at least, next to impossible to win, until a patch eventually came out for it. I never got further than that, either way

I cheated because i couldn't win.

[Dave White]

Finally got round to playing the demo.

day 1 purchase for me, I think Bob summed it all up ages ago.

Awesome stuff

[b00dles]

I don't want to sound 'yeah me' or anything but I really didn't have that much of a problem with the race bit, maybe three tries I think it took, iirc you could muscle your way to the front of the pack on the first corner or something and then just block everyone off. Bloody loved it even though it was a bit clunky, the escaps across rooftops into the church bit was bloody amazing.

Aside from the whistling, still no idea what that was all about.

[deerokus]

Console version of the first wasn't great. There was a rather annoying loading screen when driving around the city, as I recall. Graphics were poor, dodgy framerate and it had the typically not quite right PC-to-Console controls of the period.

[Keyboard Koala]

Console version of the first wasn't great. There was a rather annoying loading screen when driving around the city, as I recall. Graphics were poor, dodgy framerate and it had the typically not quite right PC-to-Console controls of the period.

But it was still great; imo...

Big on atmosphere, great music, and some amazing writing (at that time). Enjoyed every minute of it!

[deerokus]

Oh yeah, if you were like me and it was the only way to play it at the time, it was still a perfectly playable version of a really good game.

Anyway back to the present day, and I'm very very hopeful for this.

[crisy]

I don't want to sound 'yeah me' or anything but I really didn't have that much of a problem with the race bit, maybe three tries I think it took, iirc you could muscle your way to the front of the pack on the first corner or something and then just block everyone off. Bloody loved it even though it was a bit clunky, the escaps across rooftops into the church bit was bloody amazing.Aside from the whistling, still no idea what that was all about.

Oh man that bit in the church made the game for me. still great to play!

[AI]

A couple more slo-mo vids for your perusal :

Music: What If by Coldplay

Music: Lucky Man by The Verve

[Vemsie]

Fantastic vids, A.I. What are your specs again?

[AI]

Fantastic vids, A.I. What are your specs again?

Thanks

Nothing amazingly mind-blowing, here's a copy & paste of the essential parts:

- CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz Processor

- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-S2 AMD 760G (AM3)

- RAM: Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9

- Graphics Card: DirectX 11 ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB DDR5

£500 from Overclockers.co.uk several months ago, which was pretty good value.

This game certainly struggles when a lot of PhysX stuff is going on though

[misterSquare]

This game certainly struggles when a lot of PhysX stuff is going on though

Try this:

http://physxinfo.com/news/3628/mafia-ii-demo-tweaking-physx-performance/

Basically, the PhysX stuff runs physics-enabled cloth on all the AI characters, which is completely un-noticable in-game. You can just delete some files to disable it (while keeping it enabled on the player character). Literally doubled my framerate from 30fps to 60fps with PhysX on High

[AI]

Try this:

http://physxinfo.com/news/3628/mafia-ii-demo-tweaking-physx-performance/

Basically, the PhysX stuff runs physics-enabled cloth on all the AI characters, which is completely un-noticable in-game. You can just delete some files to disable it (while keeping it enabled on the player character). Literally doubled my framerate from 30fps to 60fps with PhysX on High

Thanks, but I've already done that. I find after a while as more and more particles and debris is scattered around, the frame rate goes from 50/60 down to about 10/15. Leave the area of carnage and it will steadily improve again. Do nVidia cards have this problem?

[BrerLappin]

Thanks, but I've already done that. I find after a while as more and more particles and debris is scattered around, the frame rate goes from 50/60 down to about 10/15. Leave the area of carnage and it will steadily improve again. Do nVidia cards have this problem?

Yeah, thats the same for me. FPS outdoors with physx on medium is 60. Once you start shooting a palce up and it fills with particles, (the warehouse for example) it drops to a low of 17. What i find odd tho is it seems liek the particles affect the entire area around them. Like, back in the day when you had alot of stuff on screen and your FPS was low (i used to do this in Unreal 2), you just look elsewhere, like at the ground, or behind you, and the FPS goes back up. But with this it doesnt matter, like the ground floor of the warehouse gets shot up and your FPS drops, then you go up to the 2nd floor where theres no particle emitters yet cause you havent shot anything, and the FPS is still low. Its a bit weird.

Still, i can jsut about handle 17 FPS cause it looks so damn good with particles flying everywhere And any other time, driving (even crashing, or blowing up cars/petros station etc), walking around, in the apartment etc, its 60 FPS which is frankly amazing given that my pc was built in 2007

[JPR]

Thanks, but I've already done that. I find after a while as more and more particles and debris is scattered around, the frame rate goes from 50/60 down to about 10/15. Leave the area of carnage and it will steadily improve again. Do nVidia cards have this problem?

No, because PhysX is owned by Nvidia so it's designed to work with their cards. When using an ATI card it gets dumped on the CPU and obviously it's not in Nvidia's interest to make sure it's fully optimized and work as smoothly as I'm sure it could.

[BrerLappin]

No, because PhysX is owned by Nvidia so it's designed to work with their cards. When using an ATI card it gets dumped on the CPU and obviously it's not in Nvidia's interest to make sure it's fully optimized and work as smoothly as I'm sure it could.

Damn. Im out of the loop when it comes to graphics cards...whats the general conscencus at the moment as to who has the best cards on the market? Ive been an ATI 4870 user for the last few years, ever since my 8800GTs was plagued with "display driver has stopped responding" errors.

I wouldnt mind upgrading tho, if it meant being able to run physx properly.