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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08

Surprise! Another Console Port

Visually, not much has changed since the game's last release. The game shows its console roots, with low-resolution textures and the use of simple shaders, even on the highest quality settings. These trade-offs are necessary on a console, but PC gamers should expect more. The lack of detail is more apparent on a crisp high-resolution PC monitor: grass and landscape textures which are unusually blurry up close, unconvincing water effects and spectator models that are just one step above 2D sprite cut-outs.

Much of the graphics processing budget is spent on the player models' animated facial expressions, but the total polygon count is modest at best. And while players' swing animations are authentically reproduced from motion-capture recordings of real swings, there are instances where unusual ball position contorts a player's body in a highly unusual manner.

Basic graphics settings may be tweaked by hand, or you can let the game handle visuals based on a performance and quality slider

The gallery is lifeless, refusing to move even in the face of an oncoming ball

Common course features such as deep roughs do sway with the wind, but the Course Life system doesn't do the best job of replicating a live golf course. Sure, there's the occasional duck or lily pad in a water hazard, but overall courses are static. Nothing seems organic; from greens and fairways to brush and trees, the sense of immersion is minimal. More shader detail would have made a world of difference in this regard, and in their current state courses are too plastic, as if courses were sculpted from clay and painted green. Hitting out of a bunker, for instance, doesn't result in an explosion of sand or noticeable disruption where the club face broke the plane of the ground.

The same goes for hitting out of the rough, which never produces a flurry of tall grass in the air. On the plus side, the lighting model is convincing (as long as the overused lens flare effect is turned off), producing soft dynamic shadows and rays of light as the sun shines through the trees and is broken up by the leaves. But the little details that would go unnoticed on TV displays are noticeably absent here, and by next year the entire graphics package will be decidedly outdated.

EA Sports - Not Keepin' It Real With System Requirements

EA Sports' listed requirements are unrealistically low. With the publisher's recommended requirements – a 1.6 GHz processor, 256 MB of system RAM and a 64Mb DirectX 9-capable graphics card, the game is only slightly playable at a resolution of 800x600. An NVIDIA GeForce3-based GPU may run the game, but I shudder to think of the single-digit frame rates, as even a more recent NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 struggled to reach a frame rate in the teens. For a more engaging experience on the virtual links, an  AMD Athlon 64 3000+ or  Intel Pentium 4 630 coupled with 1GB of RAM and either an  ATI Radeon X800 or  NVIDIA GeForce 6600 will do the trick.

Either of these graphics card (with 128 MB of video memory) will keep a steady 30 FPS with all graphics settings on medium at a 1280x1024 resolution. For the best experience with the YouGamers' minimum hardware, be sure to select individual graphics settings to Medium manually. The game does have an automatic visual quality adjustment slider, which tunes visual settings based on a user-set slider which runs from "Best Performance" to "Best Visual Quality". Too often, however, the game scaled graphics settings too high for the system, keeping frame rates in the basement.

YouGamers' minimum requirements. Notice the lack of shader detail, absence of dynamic shadows and minimal vegetation detail

Another shot taken with YouGamers' minimum specs. Texture and character detail are minimal

Bumping up to higher resolutions and greater detail settings doesn't require the latest-and-greatest in GPU technology. Partnered with either an  AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or an  Intel Core 2 Duo E6300, both an  ATI Radeon X1900 256MB and  NVIDIA GeForce 7900 256MB (each with 256 MB of video memory) offered enough power to push the game's renderer at 1600x1200 with all graphics settings maxed out. Even at a 1920x1200 widescreen resolution, a GeForce 7900 GT was capable of playable frame rates with only a few graphics settings called back to Medium.

The YouGamers' recommended system allows for full dynamic shadows and more detailed shaders

Post-processing effects, AA and AF are afforded by the YouGamers' recommended specs, adding realism to the experience

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: Gameplay and ControlsPage 3: Gameplay, ContinuedPage 4: Graphics and Hardware RequirementsPage 5: Issues and Final Thoughts

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