Bioshock Infinite - Excited or Not

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mistercrabby

Senior member
Mar 9, 2013
962
53
91
Just finished it. Wow, mind blown. I really, really hope the sequel is three years away.

Dude, that is awesome. I just started tonight, walking through the city, taking it all in. Really nice artwork! Well paced story development.

Will definitely put time into it!!

 

BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
8,115
0
71
I tried my 360 controller for Tomb Raider, never again, for Racing Sims only - and I'll just get a wheel next time!
 

Geosurface

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2012
5,773
4
0
can anyone distill for me what people have figured out as far as settings?

I really like running it on ultra, and a lot of the time it's perfectly smooth that way... but then every so often I'll hit a spot where it chugs a bit and I'm forced to question whether I should take it down a notch.

but earlier in the thread I saw someone say it runs the same on the setting below ultra...

just trying to find out if anyone can sum up what the conventional wisdom has ended up being about settings? Are there some tweaks I should be using in the .ini file? I saw some people talking about that but it seemed to be about mouse sensitivity? I'm using xbox controller.
 

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
11,313
7
81
can anyone distill for me what people have figured out as far as settings?

I really like running it on ultra, and a lot of the time it's perfectly smooth that way... but then every so often I'll hit a spot where it chugs a bit and I'm forced to question whether I should take it down a notch.

but earlier in the thread I saw someone say it runs the same on the setting below ultra...

just trying to find out if anyone can sum up what the conventional wisdom has ended up being about settings? Are there some tweaks I should be using in the .ini file? I saw some people talking about that but it seemed to be about mouse sensitivity? I'm using xbox controller.

The chugging at times even happens on High settings. My frame counter will say 120fps, but you can feel something happening. Check out the PCGamingWiki site I linked earlier. If there is a proven technique to fix an issue, it will be there. There is a ini tweak to help with texture streaming. Some other places suggest increasing the PoolSize in XEngine.ini from 400 to 640 or more to help with texture streaming. Texture streaming seems to be the culprit, but nothing solid yet other than turning off background texture streaming.

Actually, here is the link again. Better you read it for yourself then have me try to explain it all.

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/BioShock_Infinite
 
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Geosurface

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2012
5,773
4
0
The chugging at times even happens on High settings. My frame counter will say 120fps, but you can feel something happening. Check out the PCGamingWiki site I linked earlier. If there is a proven technique to fix an issue, it will be there. There is a ini tweak to help with texture streaming. Some other places suggest increasing the PoolSize in XEngine.ini from 400 to 640 or more to help with texture streaming. Texture streaming seems to be the culprit, but nothing solid yet other than turning off background texture streaming.

Actually, here is the link again. Better you read it for yourself then have try me explain it all.

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/BioShock_Infinite

Thanks
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
22,942
21,062
136
uh yeah this game is ridiculous fun. a few hours in. i'm crushing it on medium, too easy. probably got a make it harder

i have an oc'd 5850 1gb an i53570k @ 4.3ghz with 16gb ram im running the game on pretty much ultra everything, AA turned off, and i widened up the FOV a few notches too. no chugging anywhere.
 

sze5003

Lifer
Aug 18, 2012
14,205
634
126
Yeah I notice chugging on very high as well as ultra. Just a few hiccups here and there as you enter a new area. I've played about 4 hrs so far. It's great but I don't want to finish it yet. I may even do the suggested tweaks and start over later. By the way since the saves are in the cloud you can't delete them because the come back.
 

Iron Woode

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 10, 1999
30,990
12,539
136
I've read about the ending and saw a still of it on Bioshock Wiki.

Wow! I am so stoked about getting this game, but I am a little apprehensive about my video card - GF GTX 260 sp216. I hope it will be ok with this game.
 
Apr 17, 2003
37,622
0
76
uh yeah this game is ridiculous fun. a few hours in. i'm crushing it on medium, too easy. probably got a make it harder

i have an oc'd 5850 1gb an i53570k @ 4.3ghz with 16gb ram im running the game on pretty much ultra everything, AA turned off, and i widened up the FOV a few notches too. no chugging anywhere.

waste of time on medium...even hard isn't that hard.
 

Geosurface

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2012
5,773
4
0
I like the game a lot, but
the political stuff is a bit heavy-handed in it. Yet another "white people are bad, mmkay?" work of fiction. Yes yes, I know... I need to feel horribly guilty about how racist my ancestors were... I saw someone on GameSpot forums say they didn't like all the anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, anti-American vibe to it. I don't care for religion at all, but I do think the "tradition-bashing" has gotten a bit out of hand in our culture in recent years.

I like it a lot, but I did prefer the setting and story of Bioshock 1 I think, at least so far. Andrew Ryan was a more nuanced character, you were given reasons to dislike him, but also there were good reasons to admire him and what he'd accomplished, and you could sympathize with his frustration at all these people chipping away at what he'd built. It wasn't a clear cut villain type of situation.

I'll have to wait til the end of Infinite to see if things get more nuanced, but
I can't imagine they're ever going to come around to portraying a RACIST like Comstock as somehow the good guy, or even arguably the neutral guy... we'll see.
 

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
I like the game a lot, but
the political stuff is a bit heavy-handed in it. Yet another "white people are bad, mmkay?" work of fiction. Yes yes, I know... I need to feel horribly guilty about how racist my ancestors were... I saw someone on GameSpot forums say they didn't like all the anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, anti-American vibe to it. I don't care for religion at all, but I do think the "tradition-bashing" has gotten a bit out of hand in our culture in recent years.

I like it a lot, but I did prefer the setting and story of Bioshock 1 I think, at least so far. Andrew Ryan was a more nuanced character, you were given reasons to dislike him, but also there were good reasons to admire him and what he'd accomplished, and you could sympathize with his frustration at all these people chipping away at what he'd built. It wasn't a clear cut villain type of situation.

I'll have to wait til the end of Infinite to see if things get more nuanced, but
I can't imagine they're ever going to come around to portraying a RACIST like Comstock as somehow the good guy, or even arguably the neutral guy... we'll see.

The game takes an unexpected turn..I'll just say that.
 

KaOTiK

Lifer
Feb 5, 2001
10,877
8
81
I think I am almost near the end. I will say, they did a great job with Elizabeth, I do care about her and miss her when she isn't around as well as want to stop things from happening to her.
 

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
11,313
7
81
waste of time on medium...even hard isn't that hard.

Yeah, I dont even get behind cover anymore. It might be because I an putting all the infusion into the shields, but unless its a turret I just stand there and pick my shots. I'm just playing it for the story, so whatever. I wonder if there are even enemies on Easy difficulty.

I think I am almost near the end. I will say, they did a great job with Elizabeth, I do care about her and miss her when she isn't around as well as want to stop things from happening to her.

I think what they did with her within the first 5 minutes of her introduction made me care more about her than Lara in all of Tomb Raider.
I didnt even kill that general dude because I know she would disapprove.
hahahaha
 
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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
So, ever since I did that whole texture streaming change, I haven't had the horrible slowdowns, but I'm getting random very low resolution textures. Here are a few screenshots with examples:

(These are fairly early on so no real spoilers.)

Eiffel Tower in the background
Vendor sign
Statue plaque

I also noticed that some of my settings dropped from Ultra to High, but I did muck around in the INI files. So, that could have caused that.
 

giantpandaman2

Senior member
Oct 17, 2005
580
11
81
People make judgments far too quickly about the story before they finish it. As a general rule, Ken Levine makes games with good writing.

I'll leave it at that.

I'd love to have a spoiler filled discussion of the ending, but I'm thinking that would probably need a new thread?
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I'd love to have a spoiler filled discussion of the ending, but I'm thinking that would probably need a new thread?

You're more than welcome to use [ spoiler ] tags (without the spaces). A new thread might not hurt, but I would definitely make sure to be very clear (think CAPS ) that it's going to have lots of spoilers.
 

thejunglegod

Golden Member
Feb 12, 2012
1,358
36
91
Holy fuck. The game is unbelievably beautiful. Some of the detail in the art is extraordinary. The textures as well. But if u look a little closer there are a few kinks, like for example same npcs. Very very early in the game though. I'm just taking in the sights and sounds of Columbia and enjoying every bit of it.


Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
30,739
452
126
You're more than welcome to use [ spoiler ] tags (without the spaces). A new thread might not hurt, but I would definitely make sure to be very clear (think CAPS ) that it's going to have lots of spoilers.

I know I would also appreciate somebody posting *spoiler* along with the tags. Tapatalk doesn't read the tags so you'll never know it was supposed to be censored unless you're on a pc. But that's just me.
 

TheUnk

Golden Member
Jun 24, 2005
1,810
0
71
The chugging at times even happens on High settings. My frame counter will say 120fps, but you can feel something happening. Check out the PCGamingWiki site I linked earlier. If there is a proven technique to fix an issue, it will be there. There is a ini tweak to help with texture streaming. Some other places suggest increasing the PoolSize in XEngine.ini from 400 to 640 or more to help with texture streaming. Texture streaming seems to be the culprit, but nothing solid yet other than turning off background texture streaming.

Actually, here is the link again. Better you read it for yourself then have try me explain it all.

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/BioShock_Infinite

PoolSize does nothing as it's a console setting. PC version auto-detects your VRAM.

There is also some people saying for Nvidia users to turn off Ambient Collision and use the control panel to turn it on, but in my testing this only gave more FPS and did not effect the hitching. Screenshots also made it appear that turning it on in the CP had no visual effect and looked the same as off. Using the in-game setting however was noticeable.

Turning off background texture streaming does fix it from my experience, but some levels would crash when loading. It's not all, so you can turn it back on, load up and get to the next save point, then turn it back off. It still sucks though as you'll likely lose some progress the first time you run into these levels that get stuck.
 

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
I have not had any of the hitching that people are talking about. As I'm assuming it has to do with loading more parts of the game, it sounds like it has something to do with how it loads on slower drives. (Mines sitting on my SSD).
 

sze5003

Lifer
Aug 18, 2012
14,205
634
126
I have not had any of the hitching that people are talking about. As I'm assuming it has to do with loading more parts of the game, it sounds like it has something to do with how it loads on slower drives. (Mines sitting on my SSD).

Could be because it is on my regular hard drive not my SSD. All my steam stuff goes there.
 

mistercrabby

Senior member
Mar 9, 2013
962
53
91
Holy fuck. The game is unbelievably beautiful. Some of the detail in the art is extraordinary. The textures as well. But if u look a little closer there are a few kinks, like for example same npcs. Very very early in the game though. I'm just taking in the sights and sounds of Columbia and enjoying every bit of it.


Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android

yes! I'm doing the same thing. A lot of games rush you into the action and I really like the pacing of BI.
 

Dumac

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,391
1
0
A trusted source of mine gave it a 7.5 on an uninflated scale. That sound too low to you guys?

Thats around what I would have given Bioshock too.

He told me to wait till it was $15 or so, which is what I was planning to do anyway.
 
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