I SO can't wait to dump my 9800 Pro for a next gen Nvidia card with real drivers, this thing is a POS!

If your having problems, check out the forums at www.Rage3D.com. Going to Nvidia doesn't mean you'll have bug free drivers either. I've had my 9700pro for over a year now, no problems. I also had Geforce3 for over a year before that with no problems. At least no major problems with either.

I only went to ATI because the 9700pro was awesome for the time. My next card will be the next fastest thing.

But with the lastest dx9 nvidias cards needing some special path in nearly every upcoming game (3 and HL2) that lowers precision and even a mix of D8 and D9 when ATI can work fine on the default paths kind of makes me lean more to ATI at the moment. Even The way its meant to be played Nvidia games perform faster on ATI, like that latest DX9 Tomb Raider game.

For example in DoomIII, you read that Nvidia runs horribly compared to ATI on the default path. Only when they did a special nv30 path does it finally catch up, even performing better than ATI, but ATI is still left on the default path. They said in that case for the nv30 path, there is no noticable difference in quality even though they lowered precision and such. So then I wonder how good ATI cards would perform if they did a special path the same way if it doesn't hurt the visuals. Although, in future games, they said that precision will be needed more than before and you wouldn't be able to get away with such a thing without quality loss.

What problems are you having with your 9800pro?

I'm just glad the expansion will be free.. because we deserve that.

They said Expansion Packs, plural, so there will be more than one, and that the first one to D'ni is only free. So it sounds like we'll still have to pay something for the others.

Yeah consoles are becoming a little more attractive. When the Xbox 2 comes out, you'll be able to game on a HD tv at the correct resolution with AA, that's going to be pretty cool.

Man I can't imagine what games will look like on that machine with an ATI r500 chip, since you'll get to see the full power of the card on a console, while the same card on a pc you have to wait years and years for delayed games promising such quality.

We know the r300 (ie 9700pro) card can do a hell of a lot better stuff that the GC, Xbox and PS2, but a year and half later, those consoles have many games that look much better than most of what we have for pc, pc games are just catching up, and everything keeps getting delayed. So i can't imagine what we'll get to see on the r500 in a console. Hell, even what could be done with a 9700pro in a console would be pretty sweet.

Holy shit! And I almost bought Uru today! I'm sure as hell not paying $50 for a game that half of it is now gone! Wow, close one. Hey Cyan/whoever: Lower the price of Uru and I'll buy it! Thanks!

You still can play the SP part perfectly fine, no different than any Myst game. The live version offered new ages to explore over time, and as it sounds, you would have needed to pay to access that, so even if you bought the game with Uru live still working, you wouldn't have anymore content than if it was down. And now they're offering part of it in the first expansion for free, which would not be the case if live was still up.

$50 dollars is a lot, you should have gotten it when it was on sale at Best Buy on it's first week out

I wouldn't pass up the game because of this. If you liked Myst games before, then you should be able to enjoy just as much as the old games without the live part. Also, the 5.1 sound in the game is awesome, really makes the world come alive. Play the demo to see what it's like.

I need to get into again, only finished two ages. How many ages are in the game, besides the live ones?

This comment was edited on Feb 4, 22:52.

It might have worked for them if they had just called it "Myst Online." No one I know who played Myst would look twice at a game called Uru.

It's really called "Uru: Ages Beyond Myst" on the box. The live part is only called "Uru Live," so it's not the name of the game itself. And the game isn't only meant for online, that's just half of it, you can still enjoy the sp part of it like any other Myst game.

This comment was edited on Feb 4, 21:04.

Maybe they could do an expansion that lets you hook up with online friends and explore some Ages togethor, outside of the mmog aspect. Kind of how you'd set up a mp game in Age of Empires II.

I got an invitation to Uru: Live after a while, but I never checked it out.

This comment was edited on Feb 4, 20:50.

Still stuck at work, wish I could try it.

About those helli's. I've seen in videos it kick up myst from water when flying low. If they get close to the trees and bushes, do they start shaking from the wind? That would be awesome.

The game did stutter at times on my AMD Athlon Xp 3000+, 512 megs ram, Radeon 9700pro at 1024x768 with 4xAA and 8xAF. And more so once inside the bunker at the top of the mountain. I am sure higher end hardware would be nice, but come on, my PC isn't even a year old yet.(indented/italic)

Your pc might not be a year old yet, but the 9700pro is nearly a year and a half old. Plus, pushing 4x AA out if it in the newest games is asking a lot from the card. Just set it to 2xAA and 8x AF performance. I haven't tested the demo yet, but that's what I plan to use. If you had at least a 9800pro to a 9800XT, then you might be able to because of the faster memory and bandwidth.

Though, I heard people elsewhere saying AA doesn't work to begin with?

This comment was edited on Jan 22, 00:40.

Well, Microsoft bought out that company that made Marathon and screwed up their new game that would have been a great on the mac, then PC. I remember playing at least the first Marathon on my old Mac. I wasn't into games as much back then, I was more into graphics.

This comment was edited on Jan 6, 21:43.

I'd have to say the samething about you guys being jerks.

I'm starting to mess around with UnrealED and I'm building repect for anyone who takes on this stuff. Putting someone down for something you can't even do is wrong, and even if you where an expert at it.

Everyone has to start from somewhere. These kind of responses would hurt someone and possibly cause him or her to quit when they could have a lot of potential. You wouldn't tell an art student in class that he sucks and should never had tried, that's destructive.

This comment was edited on Dec 21, 03:14.

ATI cards did have a AA problem, but a solution was found quickly compared to Nvidia. But in the end they did solve it for Nvidia by using pixal shaders. While ATI I think uses Centroid AA to fix it.

Why couldn't they do that with other recent games that AA doesn't work, like Halo and NFSU with the blur?

This comment was edited on Dec 15, 19:38.

My PC Athlon XP Barten is clocked at a 3100+ rating, 1gig ram, 9700pro, and I could only play it smoothly at 800*600, and that's with no AA or AF, which really are not supported anyway. I wish I could have run it at 1024, but somehow it takes a bigger hit than you'd think.

Someone at work was showing off his new 20gig iPod, man are those things small. I mean a 20gig drive and a battery in that size, amazing. Plus the cool looks and extras that the thing can do, like a calendar and solitare I think. Then with the firewire, it doesn't take time at all to copy stuff. You can even use it to copy computer files to to transfer. There were storys about people connecting them to Macs at retail stores and quickly stealing apps like FinalCut and such.

Though, I'm just seeing some other mp3 players that use the micro drives, a 1.5 gig drive the size of a quarter, so the whole unit it very small, but packs a lot. Plus not that expensive.

This comment was edited on Dec 12, 14:39.

Is there a way to repair a vehicle with a tech or something? They also seem very unstable, like I mentioned when touching the enemies'one. I hate when it's on fire and just bumping into something at 2 mph and it explodes.

Luckily while in the demo I haven't encounterd heavy sniper fire. I'm guessing the turrents can quickly send a sniper running. I did find it easy myself, incredible zoom distance. But at least there is a tracer with the team color.

Anyone take the buggy up the hills in the middle and hit the booster up it, you can get some air with that.

With the tanks, they should limit the weapons that can hurt it. Like in BF1942, average guns didn't do anything, only explosives. The tanks damage to easily and make it pointless, they need to be more powerful.

Also, if the enemy buggy taps your buggy, both explode.

Just came back from CompUSA. They had 3 left, but had no idea where they are They had plenty of the 19.99 verions, the exact same box, but without Civ II jewel case stickered to the back. It was kind of stupid actually. They were still selling the regular box without a freegame more than the one with the free game, and wouldn't budge on the price when they couldn't find the 9.99 version their computer says they have in.

Well, I almost bought it for the 19.99. But then I thought, BestBuy is nextdoor. Ran over there, found their 19.99 one, and they priced matched it to the CompUSA 9.99 ad.

So for those who find it out of stock at CompUSA, BestBuy will pricematch it, though you don't get CivII.

I'm going to have to get that 9.99 Unreal II/CivII deal at CompUSA. There's no point waiting for the Special Edition for 29.99 if the only difference is the XMP in it over the Unreal II I can get now for 9.99 and dl the XMP.

Here's to hoping they have some still in stock. Maybe BestBuy will pricematch.Though, the store says jewel case only, I guess no box for this 9.99 version. But actually that sounds better than when I bout UT2003 new in a box, where I only got paper slips and an installation that asked for cds with type that they didn't have on them.

This comment was edited on Dec 9, 22:27.

I never checked it out when it first was posted here. But now it's looking really fun. I hope there are plenty of players.

Damn, and I just bought it at EB for $15.

I coulda saved 5 bucks!

Sounds like you must not of enjoyed the game if your upset about $5. I wonder if you can get that 110% pricematch some stores offer if you find it cheaper elsewhere.

I don't know how DX:IW works, but lately a lot of games have features that cause AA not to work. Such as in Halo and Need For Speed Underground. In NFSU, you have to turn off motion blur and light trail to get AA to work.

So maybe there's a setting in DX that causes AA to fail. In Halo, you had to disable render targets in the ini file. AA would work, but the game would have a lot of graphical glitches. I had to play halo at 800*600 with no AA on a 21inch screen :-(