Age of Empires 3 demo

[xemous]

Downloading now, 400k/sec, 360megs
Heres the url: http://www.ausgamers.com/ on the front page.
Hot damn the graphics are nice.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[Necropennis]

Man, I hope AOE 3 will have a decent performance in my machine.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[corvax]

angler, what are your pc specs?

 

[Sol Invictus]

It plays great. I love the building explosions. The graphics dont seem up to snuff with the screenshots and videos though. Perhaps it is due to the fact that the demo is downsized.

 

[xemous]

Anyone find a way to reduce the size of the hud, or minimize it somehow.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[fizzelopeguss]

angler, what are your pc specs?

Amd Athlon XP-M 1.2 GHz (not overclocked)
Xabre graphics card (didn't bother with the model name, it was only $15 )
512 MB of cheap RAM

As you can see, I need a new computer... haha. But this game ran, and it's good.

It plays great. I love the building explosions. The graphics dont seem up to snuff with the screenshots and videos though. Perhaps it is due to the fact that the demo is downsized.

It's do to the fact that your graphics card isn't up to snuff. For the "screenshot" look, you need some heavy power under the hood. I found a few pictures from an AOE3 forum, the first one is a guy with a GeForce 7800GT.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3756/1396/1600/AoE3 Screenshot1.JPG

http://illhostit.com/files/4160602593135736/age

Here's mine:

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/4310/aoe33vc.jpg

Still don't look like the MS screens. (mine looks like the top one)
Apparently the demo is a pretty old build, some stuff might be missing i dunno. I can't get AA to work and it's pissing me off.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[Sol Invictus]

Mine looks at the one at the top, but like fizz said, it's still nothing compared to the Microsoft screens.

I have a 9800XT and feature-wise, it's no different from the 7800. Slower, definitely, but it supports the latest HDR and pixelshader tech.

 

[wizard]

I have a 9800XT and feature-wise, it's no different from the 7800. Slower, definitely, but it supports the latest HDR and pixelshader tech.

9800XT does not support HDR at least not in hardware. And even if it has HDR support through the drivers it's not "real" HDR. Pixel Shaders it only supports to 2.0 while 7800 supports 3.0.

And about the demo: Played it, found it easy (at least the two campaign maps.) though I played on normal. Hated the woman who seems to be the main character.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, I guess that's true, the 9800 XT only supports software HDR, not that anyone can tell the difference.

Either way, all those shots on the Crossfire and the 7800 don't look anywhere as good as the shots Microsoft released.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[corvax]

interesting choice especially if you plan to use that card with your athlon 1.2

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[jiujitsu]

Oh, I got the demo and played it a ton of times. It's great fun!

 

[Necropennis]

Woah, the game ran great with almost everything maxed out. The only option I couldn't max were the shaders, as "Very High" shaders killed my fps.

 

[Chefe]

What are your specs, Necro?

 

[Necropennis]

Athlon XP 2600+, 1024 RAM and a GeForce 6600 256 mb :/

 

[Chefe]

Does the 6600 have Shader Model 3? If it doesn't, that might be the problem.

So you can make almost everything out. Sounds good... for my 6800! :twisted:

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I found the demo fun but there were a couple of things which made me a little disappointed:

• Graphics not as good as the screenshots. I expected to be blown away, instead it just looks okay. There's nothing wrong with the graphics mind you but I did expect a hell of a lot more. Beutiful scenery I could stare at for hours etc..
  
• Treasure which is worthless (30 food? YAY!) and dumb "treasure guardians". Like I can be bothered scouring a map with a small army in return for pathetic amounts of food.
  
• Can only build trading posts at pre-defined "trading post" stations. Would've been much better if I had to build road, then lay the rail and all of that shit rather than just spending 250 wood on a building and WAYHAY, trading route! Things like tearing up train tracks and so on would've been nice.
  
• The card thing. Rather than say, earning "coin" and buying in more troops of whatever you want, provided you can afford it, you have to earn the cards. The cards never give you anything that's really worth getting or that I can't get more of myself and quicker. Also being limited to the one shipment of 6 musketeers or whatever, what the hell's the point? I may as well build my own damn army.
  
• Red flashing card indicator. Because you know, I really want to use those cards!
  
• XP. Seriously, ditch XP, use coin, let me buy what I want.
  
• Huge arse interace. I mean, my God. It doesn't need to be that freaking big surely? I'd much prefer something easier to look at and understand and more like AoE2 rather than this huge-arse piece of crap.
  
• Limits on buildings. Only one missionary? Limits on houses? Only 7 outposts? Rather than being able to build a bunch of extra houses to cater for the population in case someone takes some of yours out, you're stuck with 20. Rather than being able to build a bunch of missionaries for
  
• Limits on ships. Only 2? You've got to be fucking joking. They look so beautiful and you can only have 2 of them. Yay.

I love how buildings really take damage though as pieces of roof go flying as your cannonballs plough into them. I like how your men switch to torches when they're attacking a building and try to burn it down.

I like how you can get 5 guys at a time. Training an army quickly is easy. The downside is that I can see that leading to yet more "no matter what I do, he's always got another 500 men" type scenarios. Someone with a few barracks could easily get an entire army out in one pop.

Despite all that, it's fun though. I don't think I'll be getting it until it's in the bargain bin though. I'll stick to AoE2 in the meantime.

 

[Chefe]

Woah, hold on, there's limits on buildings?

I have played the demo a few times, messing around with stuff, but I never came across any limits (I guess I didn't build more than one church, etc.)

That bites.

- Regarding the graphics, it's probably just an early build. It's also got a ton of bugs, such as the spanish rolderos (however they're spelled) not having any voices and the British priests have their animations fucked up.

- I don't get the trading thing at all, so I don't know if the pre-defined routes are actually important.

- The card thing is for your home city. It's just an extra bonus thing, I guess. Early on, the ability to bring in a few extra army units helps and some extra cash or food. About mid-way, you can bring in some rockets, cannons, or such that help out. Later on, the home city shipments really don't matter much anymore.

- TWO SHIPS??? Are you joking...? I remember in AOE I used to have all these huge and really cool naval battles. What are you supposed to do with only two ships?

But hey, you never know, things might be improved. I'm sure Ensemble is getting a ton of feedback on the matter (but companies don't always listen, unfortunately).

 

[Chefe]

Just got my 6800. I can run everything at high settings (ha! never have said that before)... but they still don't look like the screenshots. Close, but no cigar. The game does looks REALLY freakin' good though, and the oceans are hawt.

Still, it's probably just an early build.

 

[Talorc]

I had wierd graphic glitch with my Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb on the demo. I get a wierd checkerboard pattern on the shadows, which doesnt go away till I turn down the shadows to Low.



I have the problem for quite a few other games though, so I think it might be a artifact of the card itself.

Anyone know a half decent Ao3 forum?

Cant really say much about the game, seems to be another RTS really.

 

[Chefe]

Here you go:

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/Ultimate.cgi