So I had planned to have a Wot I Think on Prototype up this evening, but my efforts have been stymied by The Worst Boss Fight Of All Time (TM) leaving me too tired and annoyed to celebrate the good stuff about the game. Tomorrow morning, when I am fresh and cheerful again… Until then, I shall type quickly but stoutly upon smaller subjects. First up, the demo/benchmark tool for the much-delayed Streetfighter IV PC. These curious 400Mb contain no playable code, but instead a technical demonstration of how the man-slapping opus looks and runs, complete with framerates should you care about such a thing. It’s surprisingly pretty, I found – colourful yet detailed, and with a real physicality despite being a 2D wolf in 3D sheep’s clothing. Seems to run very smoothly on my machine too, but then I do currently have a PC that could eat God. /Me flexes. Anyway, it’s all yours from here. Oh – turn off Vsync, or you’ll max out at 60fps.
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Swiftranger: It’s a game that inherently needs 3 or more buttons pressed simultaneously. This, of course, makes most keyboards shit themselves, because it’s not a device designed for gaming. If you can think up a magical solution to that problem, feel free to tell us, rather than saying that they just SHOULD find a solution.
Dominic, you seem to have missed the comparison to console-ports of RTS games. Those don’t work well with the default input method either, people criticize them for that just the same. The point wasn’t that it should work MAGICALLY, but that if it doesn’t, there’s no reason it shouldn’t get criticized.
Also, it’s not magic: keybinds for multi-button presses. Works out pretty well.
Anyway, just a get a bloody gamepad. The same way you should just get a bloody mouse+KB for an RTS.
So, we’re back to arguing that flight sims should be marked down if they’re not playable with just a mouse and keyboard, right? Because that’s reasonable if you can mark a fighting game down for the same thing.
Let’s at least be consistent, shall we?
I found it easier to play I-War 2 with a keyboard, actually. Joystick doesn’t have enough buttons and directions.
@DeliriumWartner
Agreed. Seth = TWUNT
one of the most painful last bosses i’ve had the misfortune of playing. the game is a blas until you get to him then the joypad goes through the window.
K, sorry for stepping into that trap of responding to the troll. :)
Now, there is a difference between being playable and barely being able to change controls at all. The DMC4 and RE4 PC ports apparently did the latter thing and largely assumed we should have all played those games on PC with a game pad, no questions asked. That’s for a third person hack ‘n slash game and a third person survival shooter, not exactly impossible to tweak for the standard PC control setup. I understand there are optimal controllers for certain genres but that doesn’t mean you only have to cater to the select hardcore which actually do have those extra peripherals. Because yes, most PC gamers don’t have a steering wheel, game pad or a joystick, they just have the keyboard and mouse. If Capcom insists on bringing the console experience to PC then a SFIV PC package which includes a controller would be preferable idd.
Flight sims? Do they still exist on PC in commercial form? :) Kidding, but while fighting games and RTSs aren’t exactly the same I think flight sims are just from a different universe. Impossible to stay consistent there imo. ;)
Runs pretty well on my work laptop at 720p (i.e. so’s I can hook it up to my telly if I ever get an hdmi adaptor) – does anyone know what (eek) DRM it’ll have, or more specifically whether or not it’d run without a CD?
Buying this, anyways.
SPINNING-A-BIRD-A-KICK!
;–~v~–;
/o\
=D
Y3k-Bug, are you using 2/4/8xAA? It crashes for me and a few other people when using any of those. Setting it to C8/16xAA is fine though.
oops….
Here is my SPINNING A BIRD A KICK!!!
;–~v~–;
__ /o\ ___
I have an Arcade@Home I can’t wait to plug in to my PS/2 port on my gaming box just to see how SF4 handles with her. My MAME box will miss her main joystick but it should be home after some good quarter circle action.
Just because I can play something on my keyboard or gamepad does not make it authentic or accurate. If you want arcade style precision and control, there’s only one way to go, and that involves two 8-way joysticks and 6 buttons per player. ;)
I really think we should fully support Capcom for the respect they are showing us PC gamers, something rare this days.
The game is really brilliantly optimized. Just switching some options here and there, lowering the resolution and you’ll be able to play on a 5 years PC and the game will still be looking good!
I really hope this game is a f**kin’ success and shows all those dumb developers who don’t support PC, that a fighting game can exist on the PC and a game can be well optimized.
I can’t wait to play it!
@ SwiftRanger: With DMC4 it’s actually controllable with a keyboard, definitely playable, I know, I’ve tried. You need to get used to it, but after a bit of tweaking it’s fine. It’s just that the gamepad’s a bit more intuitive.
With SF4, well I know from past experience that fighters control surprisingly well on a keyboard. One or two moves are more complicated to pull off (360 spins aren’t as easy to pull off on a keyboard, so Zangief would probably me awkward initially), but things like specials actually become a lot simpler to do in some ways. It’s all dealing with digital inputs after all, and a keyboard’s a digital device.
With RE4 though, that was just a bad port, no doubt about it. It, far more than the other games listed here, could very easily have made use of KBAM support. Heck, other games have managed it without weakening or destroying the gameplay ( Dead Space in particular ). Even RE5 is going to have mouse support. RE4 was just rushed out, and to say how bad it was, lack of mouse support wasn’t even the worst issue that port had.
With all that said, it’s still valid to say that DMC4 and SF4 are going to be best played with gamepads. I’d say the flight sim analogy is apt. Technically you can still play them with a keyboard and mouse, they certainly support them. Heck, there are loads of people that completed games like X-Wing and Freespace with a mouse (first time I saw a friend zipping around in X-wing I was amazed it was even possible). Doesn’t make it the ideal system though. The games were designed with a specific control input in mind, that’s what works best, and it’s the one the game will naturally presume as the default, making what concessions it can for other control schemes. Some things can be tweaked to work via different control schemes, but not everything can. Whilst using a keyboard for DMC4 is viable, adding in mouse support for the gameplay too is something I’d be happy to say is fundamentally impossible given the nature of the game. I’ve seen more than one review talk about how the main game should have been tweaked for “mouse support”, but nobody’s given me a viable scheme for how that could possibly work.
If you’re going to be gaming with these types of games and be able to play them to the mechanics they were designed around, then you want a gamepad (well, maybe a stick would be preferable for SF4). It’s a cheap accessory that the devs rightly presume to be the best interface with the product. After that, they do what they can for other interfaces. I think SF4, more than most, is going to be easily playable on a keyboard, but then I’ve had experience playing other fighting games of this sort on a keyboard.
@swiftranger: DMC4 allowed for any button or key config, as far as I know.
The only real issue was having to configure the controls outside the game, which could be pretty annoying, at first.
Seth is maddening indeed until you figure him out and then he’s quite beatable. If you keep a certain distance away from him (particularly when he’s getting back up) he will only very rarely uses his horrible array of cheap throws and then you just block until you get a chance to sweep him. He has quite a few routines where you can always safely follow up with a sweep. Its boring, like the solution to all annoying boss fights, but so long as you don’t trigger his nasty throwing behaviour then block and sweep = win.
Those crazy guys on the internets though, they are fucking ridiculous! I basically bought a ps3 for this game but would consider getting it for the PC if I there was any chance that the PC players would be any less unbeatable.
Also, I wonder how much capcom paid R. Crumb to design all the female characters?
“Whilst using a keyboard for DMC4 is viable, adding in mouse support for the gameplay too is something I’d be happy to say is fundamentally impossible given the nature of the game. I’ve seen more than one review talk about how the main game should have been tweaked for “mouse support”, but nobody’s given me a viable scheme for how that could possibly work.”
They could have let you bind commands to the mouse i n DMC 4, but that game is meant to be played with a gamepad as much as IL-Sturmovik is meant to be played with a Joystick.
Wired 360 pads are pretty cheap if you shop around, too.
Ah yes, the same old rhetoric that every game released on the PC needs to be optimized for a keyboard and mouse because that is standard like the controller is for consoles. Want to know the difference though? Controller pads were made specifically for gaming, and keyboards were made for typing text.
Its backwards logic like this that gets amazing ports like DMC4 bad reviews because reviewers are too stubborn to accept something might be wrong with their precious ‘open platform’.
I think a lot of the DMC4 reviews on PC were bad because the reviewers wouldn’t have liked the game anyway. I know a couple of people who delivered indifferent reviews, and they certainly used gamepads with their PCs, as I do.
@ Feanor: Exactly what commands would you bind to the mouse, in a viable control scheme? The only thing I can think of is certain button presses being linked to the mouse buttons, but doing that is completely counter-intuitive and less workable than a purely keyboard based approach.
You can’t control the character himself using the mouse because of the camera perspective relative movement (changing the camera to OTS would fundamentally change the gameplay, and would be a lot less intuitive since you can’t get an overview of the whole area), and the camera is usually fixed location to give an overview of the action, so mouse control of the camera is out. And if you’re not going to use the mouse movement for either of those, then I can’t see what else it could be feasibly mapped to. And if you’re not going to use mouse movement at all and just stick with the buttons, that’s just counter-intuitive.
This is going to sound rude, but I honestly don’t mean that way, I’m genuinely curious. Feanor, have you actually played DMC4?
“Those crazy guys on the internets though, they are fucking ridiculous! I basically bought a ps3 for this game but would consider getting it for the PC if I there was any chance that the PC players would be any less unbeatable.”
My online experience in SF4 (starting from near scratch in fighting games) has been, BY FAR, the most brutally unforgiving game experience I have ever had, with any game. I am hooked, and I love the game (150+ hours so far), but virtually every night its a trial by fire.
Capcom did a great job marketing this game, with all the “original 12!” and “great for advanced and novices!” and “more forgiving inputs!” talk. LIES! Or at least, secondary to the fact that it might be slightly easier to pull off moves in SF4 versus SF3, and it might have less super meters than Alpha 3, but it is still an incredibly complex, fast-paced, and deep game, and it is no less demanding.
Well if I pick this game up, feel free to play me anytime, I assure you I shall be more than beatable.
SF4 looks ace. Gen is clearly the boy.
@ Anyone: I turned off VSync (or ‘Display V-synch’ as it’s apparently known in Japan) but it won’t go over 60 faps. Is it Windows 7 being arsey, do you reckon?
To those complaining about the difficulty, play on the free match mode. Typically, people are nicer, not to mention that it’s always nice to have a chat with someone over mic while you’re kicking their ass.
@subedii
I played Devil May Cry 1 and 3 on the PS2 with a Dual Shock 2, and played DMC 4 on the PC with a wired 360 pad. I’ve currently up to level 14 on Son of Sparda difficulty.
I just think it would have been nice if Capcom let people bind commands to the mouse buttons if they wanted to try coming up with a control scheme that worked for them, even if it seems impossible to me and you.
Fair enough, like I said, I didn’t mean to come off as arrogant.
I suppose I can understand in a technical sense why the option could be made available. It’s not like adding the button selections for mice would be a major undertaking. Although, I can also understand why they didn’t, unless there’s a viable control mechanism using mouse motion, adding in the mouse buttons doesn’t really do much good on its own.
BTW, I was hoping you could answer this, is DMC4 harder or easier than the earlier games? I’ve heard easier.
Huzzah! I finally got it working, and it runs *great* but unfortunately my comp went BSOD during the 3rd fight…
Worth saying that the SFIV arcade unit is basically a fairly low specced PC. So this is less of a port and more native.
Just tried this out and thanks to the wonders of Soft15khz and my 4350 i get 60 fps on my arcade machine monitor! Oh yeah baby! Now this game is a definate buy. As mentined before but Streetfighter isn’t streetfighter unless its 2 8way joysticks 6 buttons and 640×480 at 15khz.
“BTW, I was hoping you could answer this, is DMC4 harder or easier than the earlier games? I’ve heard easier.”
I played the original US version of DMC 3 and I think it was significantly harder than DMC 4.
Capcom rebalanced the difficulty for the DMC 3: Special Edition re-release as well as adding the Gold Orb infinite continue system. I highly recommend picking it up for the PS2 if you can deal with the dated graphics. The PC version is shit.
I got the DMC3 port when I was on an AMD64/geforce 6800gt system, and it ran beautifully – especially on the PC’s higher resolution.
I know why you think it’s crap – the controls.
That was a much more common issue for console ports back then, and fixing it was a matter of downloading a joystick emulator utility.
I had to go through the whole thing again with Deadspace, fortunately there’s a much better utility available now. GlovePie, just configure your controls from the GUI tab and forget about the scripting nonsense.
My god, just ran this tool and in windowed mode it works and runs B-E-A-UTIFULLY. Not even a hint of stuttering or slowdown.
As soon as I take it into full screen…it’s fine on the menu, but on the screen where it’s supposed to show who’s fighting, I get nothing. Have to alt+enter to windowed mode to see it. Then if I set it to fullscreen in the fight, it stutters like a bitch…
Have a 9800GT running at 1024×768 (yes, I’m old fashioned)