Looks like it's official that the PC demo will be out tomorrow. (08/17/07) Current file hoster of the demo will be FileShack. However I'm sure that others will have the demo also. And of course there's torrent sites.

Also the game is out already on Steam I hear.

Oooh. My PC version I ordered (overnight shipping. Special offer so it'll arrive on the 21st, the release-date) is listed as "Processing" now =o

I ordered Persona 3 through them and it said "processing" just when they were about to throw it out the door. Maybe it's coming early? =d As long as I have it in my hands, I'll be giddy.

And yes, I know it has activation protection. But I just want it in my hands so I can iron out my travel plans on Tuesday =o

If I'm not mistaken it's the Steam pre-load feature. If you pre-purchase the game with Steam, the service then downloads and installs the game on your PC, however it doesn't let you run the game until midnight of the release day.

Also update on the PC Demo (yes, already) release date of the demo has been retracted. Here's the original story with the update.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/48490

Same here, Gech. I did mine through Gamestop and i got billed for bioshock yesterday and it is in processing status now and i ordered overnight shipping and in my countless years of dealing with gamestop online. It only takes 3-4 hours to process and then it is shipped. So it seems you'll be getting your game Saturday or Monday. I myself have to wait a week as my folks are going to then have to ship it express mail to Japan, where i'm currently living.

Oh sorry I guess I get confused with your excessive hype for any game that you are interested in.

Is there a way I could tell UPS to hold the package right now, so I could pick it up in the office once it arrives? =o

It'd be nice if I could dodge the whole "we got it in at 5am and it'll be on the truck at 8am. Expect it around 4pm~"

If you have the tracking # for the package I'm sure that you could call UPS and have them hold it when it arrives at the dock.

http://a529.ac-images.myspacecdn.com...576f7aaf60.jpg

No steelbook casing, and the soundtrack is only 3 songs. LoL.

Thank god I paid $25 for the regular edition.

There are also reports of the Big Daddy figurine's arm falling off for no reason.

::Little Sister explodes::

You're fucking kidding me. The OST is only 3 songs and there's no metal case. fuck that man, what a jip.

Argh, you're right they changed the CE content.

*Bioshock the game
*Bioshock "Big Daddy" Figurine
*Soundtrack CD featuring music of BioShock plus remixes of period music
*Behind the scenes DVD

http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=200317

Too bad this is right from 2K's mouth when they officially released the LE details.

"We have tallied up the votes, read your comments, and are happy to announce the details of the BioShock Limited Edition. Available on August 21st (the same day as the regular BioShock edition), the LE will include a Big Daddy figurine, a “Making Of” DVD, and a soundtrack CD. The LE packaging will also be an embossed graphic designed by the winner of the Cover Art Contest going on now at www.cultofrapture.com."

Shit. That looks so lame =( The original stuff I signed up for looked pretty fuckin' sweet. I can only hope that the 360 got screwed whereas the PC might have the good stuff :3: ((probably not the case))

Alright I have a quick question about the PC requirements for this game.

I realize I won't be able to run it at all high level wise, but, I have everything except the 2.4ghz processor to run it...I only have 1.9ghz.

Does that mean that absolutely I will not be able to run the game?

Can I get this please.

http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture.../faceplate.jpg

If that's not duel core you don't stand any chance of playing the game decently on your PC. At all.

That faceplate should have been included in the LE due to absence of the metal case.

About the faceplate, is the title actually raised or is it just REALLY good shading that makes it look 3D?

@Grail
Your general performance will be lowered due to performance. MAjor 3 things to turn down to increase CPU performance for you will be;
-shadows
-particles
-physics

Thoes three make the largest hit on CPU cycle usage.

Oy....I think Forsety has it here...mine isn't a duel core processor ;____; I'm quite sad at this...I think mine's only an AMD Athlon 2600...no duel core :(

I just wanted to note that my last post made no sense right at, "Your general performance will be lowered due to performance." It makes sense if you're me because I was talking about game performance and CPU performance. I'm guessing you got that, however... what horrible wording. Being at work for 15 hours is starting to get to me I think.

My local Gamestop had a whole drawer (or more) of Bioshock LEs when I checked today. It looks rather cool really, and the Big Daddy figurine is surprisingly large (sure blows the crap out of the RA2/Prey CE pewter figurines). I think the extra $10 is justified, even if the soundtrack CD sucks. I'm wondering about the durability of that figurine though given the feedback some people are giving...


Technically there's no game that flat-out won't run if you have a slower CPU, but obviously the slower the CPU the worse the game will run. I'm actually not sure what the performance in Bioshock will be like with that CPU...the game *seems* to put a larger strain on the GPU than the CPU, but I haven't seen any official benchmarks for it yet. In any case, I'd say give the demo a try regardless and see how well it runs. I played Deus Ex on a 200mhz computer, so Bioshock on a 2600+ isn't too far-fetched. Oh and just ignore raw ghz ratings, a 2600+ is supposed to run *as well as* a 2.6ghz processor even if it only actually runs at 1.9ghz (unless they were specifically referencing AMD processor speeds with that). What are your other specs though? I thought the game required a DX9c compatible videocard (i.e. Nvidia 6x00/ATI 1x00 or better)

Oh, and is that Athlon 2600 a 939 pin by chance? If so, you can upgrade to a dual core for pretty cheap now: Newegg.com has x2 3800+ 939 pin dual cores for under $70 last I checked, and often you can get a pretty big performance boost on those if you're willing/capable of overclocking them (I got mine running stable at 2.7ghz without any extra cooling amazingly).

Well, i'm not too sure if it's a 939 pin, I could probably find out easily enough. But the reason why I'm so worried about my processing power is because I've just barely scraped the rest of the specs...I've got 1.5 gigs of ram

And my video card is an Nvideo 6800 GS. That's about all the main ones I can think of that would matter right now.

I meet most of the requirements on my laptop, but I'm unsure of two things:

1. My processor is - AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-60 2.00GHz
- "X2" = core duo, right??
2. My video card is - NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150
- so it doesn't quite make 6600..

What do you guys think? Any chance?

Torte, the 6150 has no chance of running this. Forget it. It has shared memory and is slower than a Gefore 4. I don't want to sound mean, but yeah, Bioshock is pretty demanding for a laptop....

Grail, the Athlon Xp 2600+ is 462 pin. It won't fit. You need a new Mobo. Also, it is roughly equivalent to a Pentium 4 2.6 Ghz, not a Core2Duo 2.6 Ghz or an Athlon X2 2.6 Ghz. While the 2600+ is not that fast, if you have an X1950Pro or Xt video card you could play this game.

A dual core proc will probably get 20-40% more performance in FPS than a single core of the same model.

-shadows
-particles
-physics

These 3 things will be handled by the video card miostly, not the processor. This is assuming of course, the graphics developer is good. In this case, the developer is VERY GOOD and these will be intensive on the GFX card.

Alright, thanks dude! Another extremely good reason why I need an X360 pronto.

Physics will be almost entirely handled by the CPU at this point, that's something a faster videocard won't really help with yet since almost all current physics engines are entirely CPU based. Shadows usually impose a hit to the CPU, but are balanced a bit more evenly between a CPU and a GPU. Particles mostly are GPU based though.

"More recently, scalar processors were added. Scalar processors work on a single piece of data rather than a vector. ATI’s previous card series, the X1K, had a combination of vector and scalar processors. Vector processors are very fast at processing things such as color and vertex data. Scalar processors are used for tasks that don’t use color or vertex data, such as transparency or perspective correction, which are becoming increasingly common as shaders become more sophisticated.

"Scalar processors are also used for nonrendering tasks on the GPU, such as stream computing, where they take very large data sets to do simulation, physics processing, or even audio processing—things that go far beyond working on color data. These functions receive no benefit from a vector-based architecture because they work on single values, not vectors. Many of these processes were formerly sent to the CPU for processing. Now, scalar processors built into the GPU have offloaded much of this processing burden from the CPU, leaving it free for other tasks. And superscalar architecture lets you process all these things far more efficiently." - ATI HD2900XT White Paper

Todays video cards, since the x1000 series and the geforce 7 series have had physics processing capabilities. The use of this can be seen in the Lost Planet demo using DX10.

As for shadows, it has always been my understanding that shader units on the GPU handle them.

While newer cards do have abilities similar to a dedicated PPU, the GPU/PPUs are Havok PPUs. Also the first game to use Havok Final 1.0 (which uses the GPU/PPU) will be Crysis. Therefore physics as of today are calculated by the CPU and drawn by the GPU. Which in the end causes both to work harder in linear relation to the physics demands of the game.