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BioShock

That beauty has a price and pay you must

The visual glory that is BioShock comes with relatively steep hardware requirements. Bring at least a Shader Model 3.0-capable card to the party, as Shader Model 2.0 cards are not supported. For NVIDIA users, this means a minimum of a NVIDIA GeForce 6600-based cards; for ATI users, the barrier to entry is an ATI Radeon X1300-based card or better. These also happen to be the minimum required graphics cards listed on the box. Practically, these cards are only usable if you're willing to play at a resolution of 1024x768 or lower with all graphics options set to low. Avoid playing with these settings, as the game world resembles pea soup and any semblance of atmosphere is lost.

For a more enjoyable experience – with medium graphics settings and at least a 1280x1024 resolutions – either a 256MB  NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT or  ATI Radeon X1650 is necessary. Coupled with a single-core  AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (clocked at 2.4GHz) or an  Intel Pentium 4 570 (3.8GHz), the frame rate is mostly acceptable (though sometimes drops to the teens). 1GB of system memory is a must, even on under Windows XP.

While the above hardware will allow you to play the game without any striking visual deficiencies, the experience is less engaging than with a more powerful system. Moving to High graphics settings brings out the intended atmosphere, but the hardware costs are raised significantly. Even at a resolution of 1280x1024, a dual-core CPU is required; have at least an  AMD Athlon X2 5000+ (2.6GHz) or an  Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 (2.13GHz), and a minimum of 2GB of system memory. Both of these processors can handle higher resolutions when paired with a high end graphics card.

Graphics quality set to Low – minimal water effects, no dynamic shadows and non particle or shader effects.

On the Medium setting, visuals are improved. Basic shadow maps are introduced, and texture and shader quality is stepped up a notch.

However, when it comes to graphics cards, NVIDIA GeForce 8800-based cards currently offer measurably better performance in BioShock than ATI Radeon R600-based cards (the 2600 and 2900 series). Using the most recent drivers (ATI's Catalyst 7.8 with "BioShock Hotfix" and NVIDIA's ForceWare 163.44), a 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS will outperform a 1GB Radeon 2900 XT. The disparity between the two vendors' cards is widely reported on 2K Games' technical forums, and ATI are promising a driver release to improve their flagship cards' performance in the game. Significantly greater performance on NVIDIA hardware comes as no surprise, given that the game is branded with NVIDIA's "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" logo. NVIDIA even released a special "BioShock" driver to coincide with the game's North American release.

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: Analyzing the gameplayPage 3: BioShock's Art & AudioPage 4: DirectX 10 TechnologyPage 5: Hardware RequirementsPage 6: Final Thoughts and Scores

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