Mafia II

Oh jesus, if they're tying the game to Steam then it's even more of a no-brainer.
 
WabeWalker said:
What does it mean that the map is tear resistant? Is it made out of plastic? Five years ago, it would have been unthinkable for me to have bought a game from Steam - I would have felt cheated for not getting a manual, a box, and a disc.

Today, it's the exact opposite. Today, I need a really good reason NOT to buy from Steam. The Fallout New Vegas Collector's edition is one such reason.

The Mafia 2 map looks cool, but it's not enough for me to delay my purchase of this game. If I buy from Steam then I'll be playing almost right away. If I buy the boxed copy... who knows when I'll get to play... a week later, if I'm lucky. Boxed copies are becoming rare where I live.

Seriously, this move to digital media is happening very rapidly. That said, I got my order in on the Mafia 2 gameguide. I sill like holding something physical in my hands. It just makes feel more connected to the game somehow. And I love books. Too many gamers equate gameguides with walkthroughs - but these books are much more than that; they're artifacts of the games themselves.
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I don't know what it means but I will be putting it on the wall.. I love having that kind of stuff on my walls :D But I love the art books that come with games like Tekken 6. Good stuff.
 
Mmm when i click buy on the Mafia 1 game. it shows an empty cart each time....with a new sign in and without even signing in as well.
this is for Direct2drive
 
Glad this is coming to steam.

I'm a bit worried about the game though, I've seen some high quality shots of it for the PC but all the videos I've seen of it actually in motion have been consoley, low res textures and whatnot, the gameplay looks a bit consoley as well I have to say.

I really hope they've managed to keep the console and PC versions on their own respective levels like games such as Dragons Age have done, not sacraficing quality on the PC to suit the consoles, it's a common occurance in games and a big worry for potential tripple A titles like Mafia II.
 
I'm not overly concerned about "consolitis" being too bad for this title. Sure, it's always a concern in the back of my mind somewhere these days with almost anything but I'm feeling confident that, all totaled, this game is going to kick ass.


The first Mafia has aged quite well all things considered. If you've never played it before, getting that as a bonus is a nice enticer to make a preorder move.
 
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WabeWalker said:
Core i7 - GTX 480, with a GTX 280 for PhysX - at least these are the recommended specs for the full experience.
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Seriously? I am hoping to get a way with my trusty overclocked 8800 GTX and Core 2 duo at 3,6 gig at 1360x768 :)

The above specs should be for 2500x1500 or such silly resolutions you would believe!
 
I'm sure its been asked, but I'm too lazy to search, lol: Do you need to play Mafia I to better understand the story in Mafia II? Thanks.
 
WabeWalker said:
Core i7 - GTX 480, with a GTX 280 for PhysX - at least these are the recommended specs for the full experience.
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I'll have to see if I can hunt it down, but a German website did a test of a near final version of the PC copy and they maxed it out with a 460 + a dedicated PhsyX card (they didn't specify which) and a C2Q (forgot which one) at 1920x1200.

Batman AA recommends a dedicated GTX260 for PhysX on high, but you don't need anything nearly that powerful to do it.

Edit: Here we go: http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/mafia-2/artikel/technik_vorschau_mafia_2,43581,2316352.html
 
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Derangel said:
I'll have to see if I can hunt it down, but a German website did a test of a near final version of the PC copy and they maxed it out with a 460 + a dedicated PhsyX card (they didn't specify which) and a C2Q (forgot which one) at 1920x1200.

Batman AA recommends a dedicated GTX260 for PhysX on high, but you don't need anything nearly that powerful to do it.

Edit: Here we go: http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/mafia-2/artikel/technik_vorschau_mafia_2,43581,2316352.html
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Disagree about Arkham Asylum not needing a GTX 260 or greater for full PhysX (instead of normal... that jump to High, for PhysX, was a killer).

When I installed my 9800gt alongside my GTX 480 in Arkham Asylum, and maxed out PhysX, I was still getting well above 60 FPS, but that old problem of the game somehow feeling slightly jerky... and I mean almost imperceptibly... was still there. I noticed that if I lowered PhysX to normal (instead of high) the game would feel ultra smooth, even though my frames were the same as they were when PhysX was set to high.

I then bit the bullet and installed my GTX 275 and used that as a PhysX card.

That did the trick. The game just felt so much better. Suddenly it was as smooth as it was when PhysX was set to normal.

When debating GPUs, people will often base their reasoning solely on the numbers, but sometimes you just have to rely on how the game feels when you're playing it - sometimes the numbers just lie.

I'm skeptical than an 8800 gt, by itself (or even in SLI), is going to be able to max this game out with full PhysX.
 
WabeWalker said:
Disagree about Arkham Asylum not needing a GTX 260 or greater for full PhysX (instead of normal... that jump to High, for PhysX, was a killer).

When I installed my 9800gt alongside my GTX 480 in Arkham Asylum, and maxed out PhysX, I was still getting well above 60 FPS, but that old problem of the game somehow feeling slightly jerky... and I mean almost imperceptibly... was still there. I noticed that if I lowered PhysX to normal (instead of high) the game would feel ultra smooth, even though my frames were the same as they were when PhysX was set to high.

I then bit the bullet and installed my GTX 275 and used that as a PhysX card.

That did the trick. The game just felt so much better. Suddenly it was as smooth as it was when PhysX was set to normal.

When debating GPUs, people will often base their reasoning solely on the numbers, but sometimes you just have to rely on how the game feels when you're playing it - sometimes the numbers just lie.

I'm skeptical than an 8800 gt, by itself (or even in SLI), is going to be able to max this game out with full PhysX.
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I used a 9800GTX (normal, not +) for PhysX on high in Batman AA with no problem.
 
Derangel said:
I'll have to see if I can hunt it down, but a German website did a test of a near final version of the PC copy and they maxed it out with a 460 + a dedicated PhsyX card (they didn't specify which) and a C2Q (forgot which one) at 1920x1200.

Batman AA recommends a dedicated GTX260 for PhysX on high, but you don't need anything nearly that powerful to do it.

Edit: Here we go: http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/mafia-2/artikel/technik_vorschau_mafia_2,43581,2316352.html
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Batman does not recommend a dedicated gtx260 for high physx. they recommend just a single gtx260 to handle everything for normal physx settings and then add a dedicated 9800gtx+ for high physx. but yeah even the single gtx260 can handle everything on the high setting if you are not too picky.
 
Batman AA physics is almost playable on a Q9450@3.6Ghz, I had 25fps in most areas of the demo when I did my testing, at about 30-40% total CPU load. PhysX is a joke, it deliberately runs like shit on CPUs in order for you to need a GPU to run it, Nvidia should be ashamed.
 
Well I though that Batman AA ran terrible in the demo and much better in the actual game. I got much better FPS with the game then the demo at same settings.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Batman AA physics is almost playable on a Q9450@3.6Ghz, I had 25fps in most areas of the demo when I did my testing, at about 30-40% total CPU load. PhysX is a joke, it deliberately runs like shit on CPUs in order for you to need a GPU to run it, Nvidia should be ashamed.
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Well I wouldn't say it deliberately runs bad on the CPU, in so much that Nvidia never put any effort into improving the CPU API when they bought Agia. It was never coded well for threading in the first place and Nvidia didn't do much, if anything, to improve that. So its not so much that Nvidia made it run bad on the CPU, just that they never had any intention of making it run good.

Also the CPU specific API for PhysX does run well on the CPU. Dragon Age and Divitiny 2 both use non-GPU PhysX. So for normal physics effects its fine.
 
Actually I remember playing cell factor back in the day before Nvidia owned it and it being playable with the psudo-cloth/liquid physics off and getting pretty much 100% core usage on my dual core, game was very playable actually.

It's amazing actually, I was playing ghostbusters today something I bought a while back and only started playing the other day, some of the physics in that are really impressive, you have whole pillars you can crumble to bits, hundreds of particles flying about hundreds of books in the library mission, thats all done on the CPU and all runs smooth as silk for me.
 
I've been thinking of moving to a 5870 - if I did can you then use an Nvidia card for Physx, or does the primary card have to be Nvidia also to enable Physx?
 
Forceman said:
I've been thinking of moving to a 5870 - if I did can you then use an Nvidia card for Physx, or does the primary card have to be Nvidia also to enable Physx?
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I take it you have been out of the loop for a while when it comes to physx.
 
The demo will clear this up.

And yeah this may be a nonsensical comment, but it's kind of encouraging that the developer has the balls to release a demo of the game a good two weeks prior to release.

I may be wrong about this, but I believe that the demo for Arkham Asylum was instrumental in that game selling well. Most gamers... even hardcore gamers... had no idea that Arkham was going to be anywhere near as good as it was. The demo just blew the doors off the whole thing.
 
Forceman said:
I've been thinking of moving to a 5870 - if I did can you then use an Nvidia card for Physx, or does the primary card have to be Nvidia also to enable Physx?
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You'll have to use a hacked driver to enable Physx when using AMD as primary graphics adapter. From what I can tell, it's not an issue except for Nvidia disables it when updating drivers and has even added little quirks such as reversed gravity*. But a new hack comes out just as fast.

* Source: http://www.geeks3d.com/20100422/hybrid-physx-patch-1-03-with-reverse-gravity-timebomb-fix/
 
heatlesssun said:
It's already Monday here on the East Coast.
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sure its after midnight so technically it is Monday already but if I said I would meet you tomorrow for lunch would you think I meant Tuesday? lol, of course not.

and either way saying "Tuesday after tomorrow" doesn't sound right anyway. the normal thing to say would be "next Tuesday" or "a week from Tuesday" since that is August 10th. ;)
 
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cannondale06 said:
sure its after midnight so technically it is Monday already but if I said I would meet you tomorrow for lunch would you think I meant Tuesday? lol, of course not.
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No, I'd actually think Tuesday. Today is Monday for me and tomorrow is Tuesday. Technically there'd be no confusion if we were both in the same time zone but colloquially I can see your point. I work in a business where we treat time very technically.

At any rate I can't wait to see the demo AUGUST 10th!
 
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cannondale06 said:
I take it you have been out of the loop for a while when it comes to physx.
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I have, thanks for asking. And thanks for the informative response as well. :rolleyes:

SicKlown42012 said:
You'll have to use a hacked driver to enable Physx when using AMD as primary graphics adapter. From what I can tell, it's not an issue except for Nvidia disables it when updating drivers and has even added little quirks such as reversed gravity*. But a new hack comes out just as fast.

* Source: http://www.geeks3d.com/20100422/hybrid-physx-patch-1-03-with-reverse-gravity-timebomb-fix/
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That's what I thought, thanks.
 
Well shoot.. I was going to review the demo but I am going to be at a dentists appointment and then gone for 3 days.. Ohh wells I guess. Would you guys see a review of the demo or a review of the full game when it releases?
 
I don´t care for spoilers... I will buy it and try to ignore all the press as much as possible.

Wish to god the PC version sells well so we get a good Mafia 3 and not some ported crap!
 
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