Geometry Wars: Ugly as Butts

Snork

So I just saw Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved is availible on Steam and I bought it on a whim because I love it so much. I then started it up and notice it was ugly as butts and nothing like the Live Arcade version it claims to be a 'pixel perfect' port of, and nothing like the screen shots on the Steam page. I then realised for Vista you are supposed to buy it from MSN and not through Steam, as that is the XP version.
My question is this, before I pay for it a second time, is the one through MSN the one with the 360-quality graphics? Or is it just the same and they have you do it by operating system for no reason?

tracertong

doesnt matter if you bought it from MSN or not it'll look the same. when you maximize it'll be some low resolution stretched. It sucks. I just play it in windowed mode

Pheezer

The problem is that a TV doesn't have 1600x1200 pixels on its screen. It's pixel perfect to whatever resolution the original ran it. Which is going to be much lower than your monitor's resolution.

So play it in windowed mode.

Snork

Except it doesn't have remotely the same visuals. It doesn't have the whole warping grid background that the 360 version had or anything like that.

EDIT: Which the screenshots seem to lead you believe that it has.

Andorien

I dunno what you guys are talking about. I'm running it through Steam, and it looks fine at full screen, warping backgrounds and all.

Snork

Are you serious? Is there any reason it would automatically downgrade itself for my system? FYI Steam doesn't recognise my chipset.

SteevL

Yeah, I've never played Geometry Wars on the 360, but it looks pretty on my PC. What are your system specs? I don't think I'd be of any help if I saw them, but someone else might know the issue based on your specs.

Snork

Intel Core2 Processor, 1.66 and 1.67GHz
2GB RAM
Mobile Intel 945GM Chipset Family
And I actually cannot find my graphics card on the system manager, but I know I have an adequate one, just not sure which. I'll research.

Andorien

I booted into Windows to illustrate:

Original Xbox version
My computer
Original Xbox version
My computer

Granted, I'm not running at 1600x1200, but by your logic it should still look like shit because I have more lines of horizontal resolution. However, the game ends up looking the same in both windowed and fullscreen.

Snork

Maybe I wasn't being clear when I said it looked nothing like the original.

Andorien

Yeah, ok, shit for you just isn't rendering.

First step is to check video card drivers and ensure they're up to date.

Edit: It could also be a Vista problem, in which case getting the MSN one might help.

Snork

I would be doing that if I could only figure out what fucking video card I have. I can't even find my laptop ont he HP website and it si not even half a year old.

Andorien

The DirectX Dialog should be able to tell you. Run the command "dxdiag" in the search bar without quotes. Then go to the Display tab.

corcorigan

Intel's 950 thingy isn't a proper graphics card. It'll cope with Vista, but not games. Onboard isn't really the right way of putting it for a laptop, but it's definitely at the bottom of the market. I'd bet that's your issue.

Andorien

corcorigan wrote: »

Intel's 950 thingy isn't a proper graphics card. It'll cope with Vista, but not games. Onboard isn't really the right way of putting it for a laptop, but it's definitely at the bottom of the market. I'd bet that's your issue.

I was under the impression that that was his mobo (I'm really not familiar with Intel's shitty integrated graphics chips), but if that's not the case and it is indeed the video card, yeah, that's your problem right there. It's not just a matter of speed, it simply wont support certain effects, and rather than trying to emulate them in slow as hell software mode (IE, the DirectX Reference Device, which I don't think is even enabled for non-development .dlls), the game just culls them.

ElJeffe

It doesn't look like you're playing Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. It looks like you're playing the original Geometry Wars.

Are you sure you downloaded the right version? And if so, is there some setting that makes it look like the original instead of the sequel?

Andorien

ElJeffe wrote: »

It doesn't look like you're playing Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. It looks like you're playing the original Geometry Wars.

Are you sure you downloaded the right version? And if so, is there some setting that makes it look like the original instead of the sequel?

It says Retro Evolved right there in the window title ;-)

Drez

"Retro Evolved" is the full name of the game. Are you sure you are playing Evolved and not Retro?

I am pretty sure you are, though, and like someone else said, it's just not rendering everything that it should.

Snork

There is no option to play retro. That was the first thing I checked.

So I basically bought a laptop without a video card? What the fuck. If I send it in to HP (it's a pavilion 6263cl) will they give it a good one for moneys?

Food?

That's not Retro, as Retro contains the entire boundary on the screen.

Synapse

You're typically stuck with what you have, as far as video cards go, in the laptop world. There are external cards, I think, now.

Snork

This makes me want to kill myself. This is the second time I've bought a new computer and somehow ended up without a video card. How do external cards work?

Pheezer

Synapse wrote: »

You're typically stuck with what you have, as far as video cards go, in the laptop world. There are external cards, I think, now.

Buh

What

No there aren't

You can get an external unit for capturing video

You cannot get an external video card because guess what USB 2.0 is juuuust a touch slower than PCI-e (hint, it's more than just a touch slower)


To the OP:
Next time look at the specs on the laptop before you buy it. Most laptops come with low end videocards. All laptops have integrated videocards. Some of them are just a lot better than others. There are very, very, very few very, very expensive upgradable videocards in laptops, but I don't know if anyone even makes those any more or if those died out a couple years ago.

Snork

Yeah. It just so happened that the day I went to go buy my laptop from Costco (parental condition) they were out of the model I was going to get, so I just bought the next one up thinking it would be okay, and the 'computer guy' wasn't there. Wonderful.

Food?

Well, how long ago did you buy it?

Snork

May?
I can't even find my model listed on the HP website.

Cryogen

Is it this?

dv6263cl linky

If it is, then yes its an intel 950 graphics chip, which isnt very games-friendly.

DHS Odium

Since you bought it at Costco, they have a pretty good return policy, see if that will work.

Gotcha Force

all you can do is wait for this
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=5369

Htown

From wiki:

The GMA 950 is Intel's second-generation Graphics Media Accelerator graphics core. It is used in the Intel 940GML, 945G, 945GU and 945GT system chipsets. The amount of video-decoding hardware has increased; VLD, iDCT, and dual video overlay windows are now handled in hardware. The core clock is 400 MHz, boosting pixel fill-rate to a theoretical 1600 megapixels/s.

The GMA 950 shares the same architectural weakness as the GMA 900: no hardware geometry processing. Neither basic (DX7) hardware transform and lighting.[1], nor more advanced vertex shaders (DX8 and later) are handled in the GMA hardware.

My guess is that your problem is right there.

Andorien

Htown wrote: »

From wiki:

The GMA 950 is Intel's second-generation Graphics Media Accelerator graphics core. It is used in the Intel 940GML, 945G, 945GU and 945GT system chipsets. The amount of video-decoding hardware has increased; VLD, iDCT, and dual video overlay windows are now handled in hardware. The core clock is 400 MHz, boosting pixel fill-rate to a theoretical 1600 megapixels/s.

The GMA 950 shares the same architectural weakness as the GMA 900: no hardware geometry processing. Neither basic (DX7) hardware transform and lighting.[1], nor more advanced vertex shaders (DX8 and later) are handled in the GMA hardware.

My guess is that your problem is right there.

Yep, that'll do it. The hardware T&L might not be that much of an issue, but no geometry/vertex processing = slow slow slow.

Zxerol

My friend's laptop has the GMA950 chipset as well and I can confirm that grids don't appear on his machine either.

Gihgehls

Yes the onboard video on most laptops is hardly comparable to the capabilites of the xbox 360.