[ILy- Forver]

FYI, the demo is out on Steam. Sits at a little over 1GB.

There are a couple of bugs with the demo so far, if you enable PhysX with a Nvidia card, there have been reports of some major FPS hits and if you use and ATI card, when you quit the game your screen is very dim. Can be fixed by restarting your computer.

Just been messing around with it and damn, it is some great fun. Runs really well and looks really great, can't wait to get my hands on it.

[Riky Carrasco]

Thanks for the heads up, downloading now. Should be fun.

[cutiecute]

I'm waiting for the release. I'm a masochist that way(*)

Spoiler

(*) although I'm not the hardcaore masochists that want to see the release date pushed back two months.. I'm a softy

edit
glad to hear it's looking sweet though :celebration:

[keri seymour]

Low performance with PhysX probably isn't a bug, PhysX is just all-around poorly implemented. I've also heard of poor FPS when V-Sync is turned on, which would hopefully be fixed by the time the game's released.

Grabbing the demo now though, so we'll see how yesteryear's high-end hardware holds up, but from what I've seen so far everything is peachy besides PhysX.

Edit- Yep, Vsync absolutely murders my performance, which is otherwise pretty good, even with APEX set to high I get around 25ish, which is more than I was expecting considering they recommended my main GPU as just dedicated PhysX. :rolleyes: I may grab a used 8800 GT for PhysX though, because it actually looks pretty good in this game.

Aside from that, once you change the driving mode from that horrid, ultra-responsive arcade mode to Simulation, the gameplay is near perfect IMO. I can easily see this becoming my GOTY just as I expected it to.

[Leanne Molloy]

Whoever tries it tell me, better or worse looking than GTA: IV? Because I honestly think it's not gonna get near GTA.

[Nick Jase Mason]

Whoever tries it tell me, better or worse looking than GTA: IV? Because I honestly think it's not gonna get near GTA.

Much better IMO, I never thought GTA IV looked all that great to begin with.

[glot]

It looks great. If you need some extra performance turn V-Sync off first, and if that doesn't help try AA, and maybe Ambient Occlusion off. I find that AO doesn't add all that much, but you can gain quite a bit from turning it off.

And don't bother with PhysX if you have an ATI card.


One thing I did find odd is that for AA there's only an on and off option, with no way to say how much AA you want.



Oh right, and the game is awesome.

[Dawn Porter]

I played the demo today, it was great fun! I think the story mode is going to be fantastic in this game.
Now I must wait until it comes out...

[Stu Clarke]

It's awesome! Gonna pre-order some time this week, can't wait for the release :shocking:

And it runs great on my 4870, about 50/60 fps! Did not expect that


Ow and, the dimmed screen can be fixed by pressing ctrl+alt+delete. That way, you don't have to reset your pc.

[Lance Vannortwick]

Must resist downloading demo!!!

Don't want to be spoiled.

[Chris Duncan]

I'm going to have to go with El Diablo on this one but for a different reason: if I like it too much I'll want it and I can't afford the time and money for a new game!

[Farrah Lee]

Thanks for posting about this OP, I had thought the demo wouldn't be out until a few days later and thought I'd miss it because of it (wont be near my computer for a few weeks). Downloaded the demo before school, I look forward to trying it out!

[Aaron Clark]

I'm extremely impressed, and it runs much better than I thought it would

[Unstoppable Judge]

I'm downloading it now on xbox live. Fast DL for a gig.

[Emma-Jane Merrin]

Cool, I'll have to download this demo tonight and give it a blast. Looks like fun from what I've seen.

I've also heard of poor FPS when V-Sync is turned on, which would hopefully be fixed by the time the game's released.

That's not something you "fix". V-Sync makes the game only draw a new frame when the monitor is refreshing, so with a typical monitor with a refresh rate of 60Hz, that means it can only run at 60, 30, 20, 15, 10 and 5 frames per second. So, if the game drops below 60 fps at any time, it drops right down to 30 fps, and so on. This prevents screen tearing but means you can get very noticeable framerate drops even when the performance is only actually going down slightly.

[Destinyscharm]

Pretty good. Just wish the camera wasn't so close to your head though.

[Kevin S]

Oh man, the demo was quite short, but very very sweet! If we can expect the same from the rest of the game, this is definitely not a game to miss! Graphics look amazing, the weapons are nice and meaty, the city seems bustling, and the characters are spot on. Can't wait for this now!

[John Moore]

Cool, I'll have to download this demo tonight and give it a blast. Looks like fun from what I've seen.



That's not something you "fix". V-Sync makes the game only draw a new frame when the monitor is refreshing, so with a typical monitor with a refresh rate of 60Hz, that means it can only run at 60, 30, 20, 15, 10 and 5 frames per second. So, if the game drops below 60 fps at any time, it drops right down to 30 fps, and so on. This prevents screen tearing but means you can get very noticeable framerate drops even when the performance is only actually going down slightly.

Perhaps, but I go from 60-120 FPS (with PhysX/Vsync off) to ~10-15 average with Vsync on, I don't believe that's correct. I've been able to run every other game I own with Vsync on and that's never happened before. I've also seen reports of the same thing on various PC forums I frequent.

[Ownie Zuliana]

I've been having a few shootouts with the cops and man are they hard to beat! Get three of them following you with a tommy gun and you're [censored].

[Mizz.Jayy]

I wish there wasn't a time limit. Grrrr. I want to get this game but I'm saving for new Vegas! Time to watch more dogs.

[Melanie]

I quite like the health system in the game. When you're hit you lose a lot of health at once, but after a few seconds some of the lost health regenerates. This really encourages taking cover, because if you're in the open and get fired at you die pretty quickly. And it never regenerates all lost health, just a percentage of what was lost, so I'd say it's pretty balanced.


The AI is also pretty good at taking cover and stuff.

I also got in a fist fight with one guy when the police arrived. Instead of instantly trying to arrest me he just told us both to stop.

The only thing I do miss is that pedestrians don't react when you point a gun at their face.

[~Sylvia~]

A possible "fix" for PhysX:

1: Uninstall PhysX.
2: Run a registry cleaner of some kind (http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/), restart.
3: Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\mafia ii - public demo\3rd
4: Install PhysX again.

Some users are reporting a boost in framerate when APEX PhysX are set to Medium/High.

[Kit Marsden]

Played the demo. Damn fun.

Gonna go pre-order the CE for the PC.

[Stay-C]

Enjoyed the demo a great deal, which isn't really a surprise as I find the original Mafia to be more enjoyable than the GTA games. Looking forward to play the game some day, but there's no rush

[Ashley Clifft]

Perhaps, but I go from 60-120 FPS (with PhysX/Vsync off) to ~10-15 average with Vsync on, I don't believe that's correct. I've been able to run every other game I own with Vsync on and that's never happened before. I've also seen reports of the same thing on various PC forums I frequent.

Well in that case it does sound like there is an issue there. My mistake.