left 4 dead demo

to kill a Tank on expert you have to hit it with a Molotov

i know of no other efficient way to do it

 

Wow, make your case a full tower, add in a second HD 4850 and you'd have my PC !

I actually just took a few about 10 minutes ago for this post

I'd love to see what FPS you get.

These are all max settings, 1920x1080, 4xAA with crossfire on. Oh, and crossfire scaling in this game is GREAT, about 70-80% performance boost. There is a bug so far that only happens with this game though, it doesnt happen with TF2, or HL2 ep2 either which is strange to me since it's the same engine. Every time the map changes to the 2nd map, I have to press ctrl+alt out, then back in to the game otherwise it'll only use 1 card and I'll get less than half the FPS. takes about 5 seconds to do, but an annoying bug nonetheless.

1st screenshot

2nd screenshot

3rd screenshot

4th screenshot

5th screenshot

These are all of the subway station map since I just joined a random game in progress and that's what they were on.

Auto shotguns are surprizingly effective, granted you get one before a tank appears. otherwise just keep RUNNING & shooting and spread apart so you all don't get knocked down in succession.

[EDIT] Fixed links

 

Wow, I love the vignette effect as well as the other cinematics in there.

@unknown, the first four shots are really tiny.

TBH, it doesnt look like the graphics on max beats episode twos graphics on max. However, screenshots have a way of taking life out of a game, 99% of episode two screenshots I've seen are butt ugly compared to in-game. I'm just going to have to buy L4D and play it. I notice when lots of zombies appear, the game can get pretty heavy. How well do you think a 2.53GHz C2D T9400 cpu will handle it?

 

unknown555525, I'm expecting an HD 4850 to drop sub-$100 on black friday so I might add another in crossfire if that happens, that's why I only bought one initially. I decided it was much cheaper and easier to build a mid-range gaming desktop (Easily 3 times the performance of my Vostro laptop, and my build cost me only $600) and then buy a netbook for my mobile needs.

My framerates are in the top left corner of the screenshots I took up there since I ran Fraps in the background to give an idea of the FPS I'm getting.

Valve games don't screenshot well IMO, point for point the screenshots of other games may look better, but Valve puts it all together in such an immersive and smooth way that their games look better and age better as well. Just look at HL2, the textures may not be what they are now and the up close models too, but it's aged very, very gracefully. Same with EP1 and EP2.

As far as a T9400, it's going to be GPU limited far more than CPU limited.

 

Ah - that bug is probably why my HD 4670 CrossFireX rig is not scaling as well as I thought it would. I expect the bug will be fixed in the full version of the game. It's still very playable at 1920x1200 on max, including AA (~37FPS), but gets a little laggy at times. Now I know that's only on a single card. In the beginning of the game, I get much higher FPS.

 

I don't see why people love valve graphics so much. HL2 looks good. CSS just starts looking the same past 1280 and I've noticed my laptop somehow gets hotter running that then it does Fallout 3.

 

After you've loaded into a map and can start walking around, minimize the game, then bring it back up. Can you tell me if that makes your FPS double too?

 

You can look way back to the Doom 3 vs HL2 comparisons -- Doom 3 had technically superior graphics but they didn't look as good all together. Valve has a way of putting everything together that makes things look better with less.

 

its much more CPU intensive than Fallout 3 that is probably why

 

CSS more cpu intensive...why?

 

I just played through the demo again - up until the first safe house, I get a constant 60FPS, however after that it's around 48 - 54, dipping down to the low 30s sometimes. Definitely a bug. Yes alt tabbing out fixes it.

 

I hope they add an additional difficulty setting, "Nightmare" maybe.

"Expert" difficulty is fantastic and extremely tough, but with a good co-ordinated team you can get through it quite easily.

Then again these are only the beginning levels, so the next levels will probably be much harder.

 

This is a very good tactic. Molotovs are one of the most potent weapons against Tanks. Just remember to throw it in their path, instead of directly at them. This way they will catch fire even if you completely miss the shot.

Here are two interesting ways to kill a Tank:

1) Trap it in the vents

2) Run back to the safehouse, it won't be able to jump up after you


These tactics feel a bit cheap though, so only use them as a matter of last resort.


P.S. Always shoot them in the head. It's quite tough to constantly hit them in the head though, since they're always moving.

 

Just played through the demo again myself...I just love those "horde" moments and then the random hunter pouncing on your character. Gonna play again online sometime soon; computer assisted AI is mediocre in some areas.

 

Anyway to set it up so we can play together?

 

Host a dedicated server and hand out the IP to people. I'm sure it could be coordinated through the NBR Steam group.

 

Sounds fun.

I'm still Gophn on steam.

 

gophn there's a invite friend option wanna try?

 

Hey just got the demo in steam! but I'm to scared to play this by myself...lol how is it?

EDIT: sorry if I'm late...

 

I got your invite.

I also joined the NotebookReview steam group.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/notebookreview?action=join

I gotta take a quick shower, then i'll message you in steam.

Any other NBR members are welcome to join us.

 

Its quite fun, I recommend to play through the Single Player mode once to get a hang of it and to see how good the AI that is backing you up is.

Then you can play it co-op mode.

 

I'm logged in

 

Well gophn and I played the demo last night, I'm thinking about buying the game when it comes out.

 

that was fun, me and bwhxeon just did some co-op.

more NBR people would make it even better.

 

A mic is a requirement if the game is to be fun.

 

The game keeps crashing on me. @#$%$#$!!!

 

[-єαм-|M]Gangstard
add me, let's play

NOW

 

When you say crash, does it kick you back to the desktop, or does the game lock up and freeze?


[-єαм-|M]Gangstard
add me, let's play

your name doesn't come up....

 

mine kept crashing on me too. i just reinstalled it and it works fine.

 

I haven't played the pc version, but I did play the 360 version. I never got into any previous Valve game (though I may try to snag Orange Box used for Portal as I like the demo) but Left 4 Dead kicks all kinds of butt. It's like being in 28 days later.

 

Kick me back to the desktop with the message "left4dead.exe stopped working". It takes longer to crash when I play offline but it'll always do it eventually...

 

Perhaps something to do with the drivers.

 

Mine did that, but it was because my firewall prompted in teh background and locked up the game.

I had to make Steam and L4D trusted apps in the firewall so that the firewall wont ask about anything when I play it.

You can turn off your firewall to see if its that, if it is, then go edit the settings of the firewall.

 

I think this is very unwise, especially when we have a lot of computer savvy users on this forum advocating this. I was reading some PC and Electronics magazine the other day and there was an article about hackers and id theft, anyway one of the weak spots they mentioned that was a target was gaming and how it was convenient for hackers because of people turning off their firewalls.

 

i mean to test the game for crashes..., not permanently leave it off.

I said to turn the firewall backon after the test to configure it to allow access for the game and any other parent applications tha are associated with the game.

 

Really? I just copy/pasted it.

Oh wait, do you need my actual steam logon name to add friends. I always just do it via add recent players. dahker is my steam dealy.

I'm not playing anymore anyways.

(BTW I'm in the NBR group)

 

Don't turn on firewall and the game won't run. Turn it off and you get haxed.

I'd rather game. Oh noes, they got my documents! They might read my paper for Business Law!

 

I'm torn between whether or not to buy this game. I played the demo, and I must say the campaign feels more like a multiplayer game, or just a mod of a source game, so $50 seems pretty pricey. But since its a demo, I'm hoping the full version has a real, "single-player" campaign (with co-op option, of course, LAN gaming would be sick) that has cinematics, to enhance that movie set concept and complete the package I'm looking for in a game like this.

 

only way to find out would be to wait and see what other people say when the full game is released on the 18th

 

this game is designed around multiplayer co-op not single player

 

Hey, it's still fun to wonder about these things

For those who have played online, what are pubs like? Do people do stupid things or constantly screw up the gameplay, like not healing other people when they should or not keeping up with the group? To what extent do their actions affect the team when they start dicking around?

 

well from my experience nobody really screws around that much, except for at the very end of the demo before going into the safe room people i play with mostly just shoot each other and try and kill each other, and then we just do a vote to restart the demo because we dont want to have to go through that whole "BUY L4D NOW!" thing valve put in the demo.

 

Here's my experiences..

Pc version playing Expert, most people are talking, playing as a team, and sticking together, then at the end when we're at the safehouse, throwing molotoves at each other... So yea, it's pretty good most of the time, if someone starts walking off they'll probebly be yelled at for being a moron, and that hardly ever happens..

Xbox360 version playing normal, first few minutes, a kid is whining on the mic, other players wandering off, and everyone was dying left and right.. I tried a few more times, no one was using a mic the other times, and again people were wandering off and we didn't make it because no one stuck together, tons of TK's, and people shooting at the floor or the sky while surrounded by zombies..

 

I installed the L4D demo on my laptop today. For those wondering about how it runs on a fairly typical/mainstream setup (P8400 2.26GHz, 2GB RAM, Vista32, Nvidia 9600M-GT 512MB DDR2), you can run it at almost all high settings at 1440x900 save for AA. However, there are slow-downs when the horde attacks. I haven't figured out yet whether this is due to the CPU or GPU being overloaded.

 

I'll add my performance as well. e6600 @3.0ghz, 8800gts, 4gb RAM. I am able to play smoothly at 1680x1050, 8xAA, 16xAF, all options on/high. I know there are still some people here with the 8800 cards.

 

My system's rather similar to yours. I think you could try lowering the shaders from High to Medium. That seems to give me a huge performance boost. At 1360x850, 2xAA, 4xAF, everything set to high, I get about 30 - 40 fps. If I turn down the shaders to medium, it shoots up to 60 - 70 fps.

Overall I think the game is still being bottlenecked by the CPU though. It seems to max out on both cores on my T8300.

 

EDIT: the update did NOT fix the stuttering/freezing issue

 

I can't really tell what the bottleneck in my rig is, at 1280x1024 everything runs completely maxed out AA AF as high as they can go and I get 100-150fps. Cpu running at 3.8ghz. I'm lucky I can play any games at all right now though, seeing as how all my parts aren't even in a case.

 

Are you playing on the E8500/GTX260? No wonder your FPS is so high...got some great hardware there.

 

thanks, just wait a couple more weeks and I'll show everyone a real custom computer.