As you may already know, the incredible action game that is Bioshock requires pixel shader 3.0 support in order to run. There is no ps2.0b mode, thus, the game will show major graphical problems on the ATI Radeon X800 and X850.

But, all hope is not lost yet! A couple of motivated people are working on a fix for we who own the best video cards ever designed. Think Oldblivion for FX video cards, but in Bioshock and for X800/850. It's still far from perfection, but, what, 2 weeks after the game's release, it's already an impressive effort.

See their forum here. Full article here.

EDIT: here's a petition to Irrational for adding 2.0 shader support in a later patch. At the time of writing this, above 4700 people have signed it. http://www.petitiononline.com/BioShock/petition.html

Just upgrade man... jeez.

If you will donate 1000$ to me through paypal, I gladly will.

A SM 3.0 card 150 is good enough

Dude you're talking about my private situation like you know anything about it. But you don't and I've no reason to explain it to you.

This thread's not about me it's about Bioshock's availability to ps2.0 video cards. Jeez.

All Unreal3 games require Shader model 3.0, and how are the X800 series the best videocards ever designed?

No MOH: Airborne(also unreal3 engine) for X8xx owners either.

I think the good doctor was saying that with tongue in cheek because he owns one, Heyyou.

Personally I think the unreal guys have made a notable error is ignoring all the SM 2.0 cards out there, many of which still have enough horsepower to push games like Bioshock.

Hopefully, the efforts of the modding community will influence the Unreal engine devs to add support for older cards, alot of which are still out there providing good service...

As far as I know, Unreal Tournament 3 (tell me that's not based on the UE3 engine!) supports pixel shader 2.0. http://unreal.freakygaming.com/pc/ [...] ments.html

The Unreal 3 engine allows both pixel shaders 2.0 and 3.0, its up to developpers to use whatever he likes. There's nothing in there that forces ps3.0 requirements.

Yeah, even Crysis is going to support SM2.0. This is a pic of a SM2.0 card playing bioshock, notice the white in the background. It is not perfect put it is playable.



I have a x800xt and I am playing bioshock. I just have the demo now, as I am waiting till the fix is complete.

I know, but he was so convincing I almost went and bought a new X850XT.

Maybe they should add Shader Model 2.0 support; that screen shot doesn't look much different than under Shader Model 3.0. How does the game run on your X800XT?

Almost? Noooo, I failed....

Yup that's basically the point. X800 and 850 are still very decent card in terms of raw performance, plus in ps2.0 you can do pretty much anything that is possible in ps3.0. Heck, Valve uses ps2.0 HDR in Half-Life 2: Episode One (and 2, judging from the screenshots).

So basically, we who own the pinnacle of gpu enginnering feel cheated.

I'm pretty sure Crysis will support SM2.0, since in the minimum requirements they list an x800gto, unless they have changed this since the initial requirement announcement.

"I'm pretty sure Crysis will support SM2.0," didn't I just say that it would.

As for Bioshock, it plays just fine on my X800XT, no slowdowns, very smooth, keep in mind that the unofficial fix is not done completely, so there are a few missing textures here and there. I would not recommend buying the game until the fix is done.

So you know the rest of my system to get an idea how it may be on yours:
AMD 3500+ and 2GB Ram, oh and my X800XT is AGP.

As an X800 owner I have already experienced the feeling of being left behind when the latest Splinter Cell game was released. I experienced extreme inadequacy when Oblivion was released.

However, it isn't just my AGP X800 that is inadequate. I could just buy an AGP X1950 if that was so. There is also the realization that my entire P4 3.0 865P system (built to handle Doom 3 and Half Life 2) is becoming a relic, and just updating the AGP card would not buy me much. We will need a C2D system to play the latest games.

Technology keeps advancing. This includes GPUs and DirectX. I don't feel cheated at all! I am glad that they keep advancing to provide game developers more tools to create better games. The same goes for consoles.

I predict that this trend will continue! The state of the art today will be inadequate in the near future.

So, to your whining about your X800 card I say