Dragon Age II Demo: Outlook is not good for surround users.

[Armenius]

So it seems another dev has screwed the pooch on surround screen users to a sequel of a game that was certified Gold on the WSGF.

There has been a post about Eyefinity problems here on the official forums.

There is also one about nVidia 3D Surround here.

No need to do a DR on the demo because there are many bugs in it that the devs have said are fixed in retail, so there is still a chance that surround works. One thing to look out for is the game says it can't detect a supported video card if the game resolution doesn't match the aspect ratio of your desktop resolution.

[Unknownsock]

I can't speak for surround users but eyefinity works pretty much as good as origins.

All resolutions availble to me, with some surprising dx11 features that i didn't realise they had implemented.



All cinematics are confined to the centre screen also which personally i prefer.


One bug I've seen still from the original is that fire and such effects still distort character stood in front of it, any screenshot won't show this that I've tried though, either it's just hard to see from a still or these effects are applied in the frame buffer.

But the biggest flaw being, you can't see nor use any ability from your action bars when in surround..I'm hoping this is fixed in the retail



I didn't notice any objects being clipped on certain angles like origins either. Also with two 6970's the performance seems lacking alot. I assume CF isn't working at the moment.

Note: I didn't read the eyefinity links immediately but these screenies do help i guess.

[Armenius]

Yes, the bar at the bottom being cut off is the biggest complaint. I did my own tests to see if the screen was Hor+. It is in single-screen, but I can't test multimon. I would actually prefer the cutscenes to be in surround, besides the action would end up being on the center screen anyway. Having the other screens black at that moment would take you out of the immersion in my opinion.

[EvilEngineer]

:doh

When will dev's learn that they need to make all UI's flexible and changeable to the users specific tastes.

[Unknownsock]

Yea a UI like Rifts or Warhammer online would be welcome.

[evilmatt]

A Bioware user has posted in the thread of that first link to say that the issue is already fixed for the retail release version, good news! :)

[Armenius]

Indeed, and that user was a BioWare employee so you know it's good info.

[EvilEngineer]

Did anyone else feel this was an incredibly bad demo? I spent 10 minutes hacking away the ogre in the initial sequence and got bored out of my mind. Swing.. move ... swing... move... swing... move.. dodge ram... swing.. move ... swing... move... etc.

And WTF is with Flemeth 2.0...

Original (which is happening at the exact same time as DA:O)


After playing Drakensang, DA2 is failing to meet the bar so far. I was hoping for a step forward with the series but in terms of game play it feels like a step back.

[Unknownsock]

Yea they've improved the wrong areas imo.
It does play smoother but i feel its just like a hack n slash now.
I pretty much played that whole demo by using, attack nearest target bind.

Don't get me wrong i love Mass Effect but i still don't understand why they changed so many features towards that style.
I'm still excited for it, and I won't cancel my pre-order but my expectations aren't as high anymore.

Plus the main guy is crap from what I've seen. Shepherd is epic.

[tet5uo]

Seriously just let us move the UI where we need it. I'll be passing on this one in it's current state. I don't like having to look at my peripheral monitors to see UI elements that should be centered.

[Armenius]

Anyone play the full version yet? Is the UI problem in surround fixed? I was just reading some of the threads the Bioware zombies have posted and I can't read them anymore (it's worse than Blizzard with this release...). One thing they said was fixed that isn't is the lack of auto-attack in the console versions.

[Falcon1]

The UI thingie is especially annoying as they use the same engine as in NWN/NWN2. And NWN2 had fully customizable LUA UI.

Rift has very good UI in terms of usage, though the elements themeselves are quite ugly. But you can drag&drop, resize etc. every elemen comfortably. And you can easily import your once saved settings to new characters. That's really impressive! That's even more comfortable than LotRO.
Wish all games would have such features, or at least proper Multi-screen UI (meaning: centered UI).

[matrices]

Rift UI is example of how it ought to be done. DAO2 is example of Bioware going downhill. It's not even proper to call it a sequel. And as noted, Eyefinity is worthless, just as it was in DAO, with HUD elements on the far screens.