Need For Speed: Rivals x64 - Impressions/Thoughts?

[PGHammer]

It has been officially twenty-four hours since the launch of yet another x32/x64 (Windows) game - in this case, Need for Speed: Rivals.

 

While "newcomer" Ghost Games is the developer of record, the assistance of Criterion Games (most of Ghost Games talent), and DICE (supplier of the game's Frostbite 3 engine, and the rest of the Ghost talent pool) is also noted in the credits.  Like that other released Frostbite 3 game (Battlefield 4), an x64-native executable is also on tap.

 

Who else is playing the game at all?  (I have NOT delved into the online multiplayer yet - I'm still slogging through the campaigns in offline mode.  However, don't go thinking that it will be ANY easier than online mode would be; the toughness of the AI came as a rather rude shock to me - especially compared to NFS Most Wanted.)  Have you taken the x64 executable for a spin yet?

 

Like Battlefield 4, I'm running on what would be considered bare-minimal hardware for x64: Intel Q6600, 4 GB of RAM, Windows 8.1 Pro x64, nVidia GTX550Ti.  The game is unchanged from the default settings.  I'm using the keyboard (same one I normally use - Microsoft's Wireless 6000 V3).

 

How does it compare (in your opinion) to Most Wanted or other recent NFS titles?

 

How different are the the x32 and x64 versions on your hardware?

 

 

[spaceelf]

I'll be grabbing it next month.  Not interested in even trying the 32 bit executable, as with BF4.

[psionicinversion]

That's quite a good move to get peoples opinions seeing as bf4 is a bit of a mess server wise and for me cod ghosts is completely unplayable for me to much stuttering and frame drops. Bag of crap,hope this isn't the same as those to cus loved hot pursuit and this seems like hot pursuit 2. As long as it isn't screwed up it might be good

[neo1911]

I didn't purchase this game only because of involvement of Criterion Games. Their fetish for rubberband AI sucks big time. The game feels unnecessarily too chaotic.

I might pick this up later for PS4 after it is available at bargain bin price.

[PGHammer]

That's quite a good move to get peoples opinions seeing as bf4 is a bit of a mess server wise and for me cod ghosts is completely unplayable for me to much stuttering and frame drops. Bag of crap,hope this isn't the same as those to cus loved hot pursuit and this seems like hot pursuit 2. As long as it isn't screwed up it might be good

 

Between the server issues and issues with the (required) BattleLog plug-ins for browsers, BF4 MP has been a rather messy mess - apparently, COD: Ghosts has been even worse.  That is why I like that despite that Rivals supports MP, you CAN, in fact, completely forego it.  I have not used either the NFS Network (the successor to Autolog, which does require an online connection) or OverWatch (which requires a second display - alternatively, it's routable via NFS Network to your tablet or smartphone - if it runs iOS or Android; theoretically, it should work on BlueStacks) yet.

 

Like Most Wanted, I'm doing the strictly single-player in Rivals for now.

 

My biggest nitpick with Rivals is one that I also have with Most Wanted, and Hot Pursuit 2010 - Interstate-level stretches end All Too Abruptly.  (I'm not talking about the construction zones, either - the barriers there are Deliberately Flimsy; you're SUPPOSED to go smashing through them and use those unfinished sections to catch some serious air.)  I'm talking about the ends where you go from Interstate to two-lane road inside of a half-mile - yuck!  No fun there, whether you're a racer OR a cop - I'm glad I haven't had a race - or a pursuit - lead into one of those sections yet! (Patrols in those areas as a cop are bad enough.)

[PGHammer]

I didn't purchase this game only because of involvement of Criterion Games. Their fetish for rubberband AI sucks big time. The game feels unnecessarily too chaotic.

I might pick this up later for PS4 after it is available at bargain bin price.

There's no rubber band AI in Rivals (or Hot Pursuit 2010, either).  However, you have to use more strategy to keep off of the cops' Overwatch (use of hideouts and repair shops is drive-through, as was the case in Most Wanted and Burnout Paradise - use the repair shops to change car colors, or change that rather distinctive livery; the scanner built into your car should be telling you that the PO-lice DO have a description of your car).  Besides, do you want to lose a race because you make a single MINOR mistake, while the AI makes none at all?  That is the sort of thing that can indeed happen without SOME rubber-banding in the AI, as was the case with the original Motorhead - you had to be outright PERFECT in a race, even, if not especially, against the AI; same applies to all too many racing sims without rubber-banding AI, such as Shift and Shift 2.  In this case, the reason that there is no rubber-banding is that you and your fellow racers also have to at least TRY and sneak past the cops - fail to sneak past, and they WILL land on you, and rather hard.  If you're a cop, the lack of rubber-band AI, and the twistiness of the non-Interstate stretches means that racers will mostly have it much EASIER in terms of escaping.  This isn't Burnout Paradise, and it is, if anything, more like Most Wanted meets the Hot Pursuit reboot.

[spaceelf]

There's no rubber band AI in Rivals (or Hot Pursuit 2010, either).

I only really saw it once in Most Wanted, and I played tons of that.  I think the AI system cuts corners if your system isn't up to it.

[Ulpian]

Truth about this game, sad.

[0nyX]

It seems like they have nothing to add to the game so to make it look more sophisticated and justify its price, dressed it with a billion cutscenes and all kind of crap while the essence of it its still WASD,throttle,brake.

[neo1911]

This game is like a one night stand while games like NFS 5 PU and NFS 4 HS were long term relationships.

[PGHammer]

It seems like they have nothing to add to the game so to make it look more sophisticated and justify its price, dressed it with a billion cutscenes and all kind of crap while the essence of it its still WASD,throttle,brake.

0nyx - all too many folks are of the opinion that the game reached perfection with Hot Pursuit III (the first one - NOT the reboot).  Nobody wanted to move beyond that (they considered the reboot a mistake BECAUSE cars didn't damage realistically and the controls weren't "simmy" enough - even though no version of Hot Pursuit was meant to be, or designed to be, a racing sim).  What do you want - an arcade racer, or a racing sim (of the sort similar to Shift and Shift 2)?  If you want a racing sim, then you want Grid 2 (different developer altogether - Codemasters; though it is now jointly published by Ubisoft and EA, and available via Origin).  With this game (unlike any previous version of Hot Pursuit since the first one) the vehicles (both cops and racers) actually take damage - that means that you actually have to be careful (to a degree) while driving - whether you're a cop OR a racer.  It's not completely realistic - gas stations double as repair garages, and the mechanism is shamelessly lifted from Most Wanted (and Burnout Paradise before that) - good news for both the racers AND the cops.  Did High Stakes have realistic vehicle damage?  (I mean realistic in the sense of Most Wanted or even this game.)  If anything, it's the most realistic NFS other than Most Wanted, and it's actually MORE realistic than Most Wanted (or any version of Hot Pursuit).

 

Do you want an arcade racer - or a sim?

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Truth about this game, sad.

Looks pretty bad, tying the physics to the frame rate is a rookie mistake, and the sign of a very bad port (See Saints Row 2, where the game speed is tied to the CPU clockrate, so it runs too fast on a 3.5Ghz processor and too slow on a 3Ghz one)

[spaceelf]

Looks pretty bad, tying the physics to the frame rate is a rookie mistake, and the sign of a very bad port (See Saints Row 2, where the game speed is tied to the CPU clockrate, so it runs too fast on a 3.5Ghz processor and too slow on a 3Ghz one)

With SR2 it was tied to the Xbox 360 clockrate, more specifically.

[RadishTM Veteran]

I'll be getting it next month on console, a patch should be out by then improving things on all platforms. Hoping the game feels more like Hot Pursuit (2010) than Most Wanted (2012), the car physics were much more fluid than the latter.

Reading recent reviews echo the above, so more Criterion magic please!

[LaP]

Time for Valve to make a 64 bits Steam client ?

[riahc3]

Hello,

Why x64? This seems like a hate fest for the 32 bit edition.

The Xbox One and the PS4 made a great choice to go with a 64 bit processor like the iPhone 5S did as well. The final coffin will be when Microsoft releases Windows 9 only for 64 bit processors. THEN, we will see things kick off....

[PGHammer]

Looks pretty bad, tying the physics to the frame rate is a rookie mistake, and the sign of a very bad port (See Saints Row 2, where the game speed is tied to the CPU clockrate, so it runs too fast on a 3.5Ghz processor and too slow on a 3Ghz one)

Again, I'm asking what sort of NFS game do you want?  I've heard similar complaints about all the non-sim NFS titles (including all three Hot Pursuit titles).  If you want a response that is not tied to the wide variety of PC hardware, then you want a console game played on a console; let's face facts - consoles don't vary a whit, while PC game performance varies all over the place because PC hardware varies all over the place.  I'm not saying that it isn't a console port, because it is - however, the only way around that issue (it's far from unique to this game, or any other multi-platform game) is to have it basically target consoles exclusively - and nobody wants that.  Not a single PC-exclusive NFS title has ever performed exactly the same on every PC out there - why anyone expects this one to be any different is beyond me.  Either the performance must vary because the hardware does - or else you are playing on the one hardware platform that doesn't vary at all - a console.  Game development is still a business.

[spaceelf]

Hello,

Why x64? This seems like a hate fest for the 32 bit edition.

As it should be.  There shouldn't even be a 32 bit edition.

[PGHammer]

Hello,

Why x64? This seems like a hate fest for the 32 bit edition.

The Xbox One and the PS4 made a great choice to go with a 64 bit processor like the iPhone 5S did as well. The final coffin will be when Microsoft releases Windows 9 only for 64 bit processors. THEN, we will see things kick off....

I don't hate the x64 edition whatever - in fact, that is the only executable I am playing (as is the case with Battlefield 4).

 

I started this thread for the exact same reason I started the Battlefield x64 thread - the reality that the x64 game has very much come of age.

 

Never mind that the same game engine - specifically, Frostbite 3 - is used by both games.  (In fact, the SAME complaint about the frame rate cap has been uttered with Battlefield 4.)

 

One thing the frame-rate cap does do is get rid of the e-peen bragging, thank goodness.  If your hardware can't do the cap at the defaults, back them down until it can.  (That is something you can't do with a console.)

 

I most certainly did NOT expect to be able to play at 1080p on my wimpy (though x64-capable) hardware.  It's not a slideshow; however, 30 fps at 1920x1080 is so NOT there.  (However, at 720p - 1280x720 - 30 fps is easily achievable - that puts this game easily in portable-hardware territory at that resolution.  Exactly how many games can be played at 720p at 30 fps on a notebook OR laptop - let alone x64 games?  That is one reason I'm actually somewhat glad I kept this particular hardware in battery - because it matches up, to a large extent, with portable PCs, and especially notebooks, in terms of CPU and GPU horsepower.)

 

I have been trying to point out that there has been little reason - except braggadacio - to dismiss the capabilities of modern portables in the gaming area - the recent spate of RTS games should have made that quite plain.  However, Frostbite 3 - and games based on it - are not just making multi-platform gaming a reality, but pushing even PC gaming into areas mostly considered foreign turf - like x64 and portables.  (Portable-friendly shooters?  Portable-friendly arcade racing games on PCs?  Both are now a reality.)

 

Compared to the previous NFS cop vs. racer titles (and especially the Hot Pursuit titles), this actually is the one that makes the most sense, and especially as a successor to the Hot Pursuit reboot.  First off, compared to the previous Hot Pursuit titles, the vehicle damage is far more realistic - including the effects on handling, much to my despair.  Ducking into gas stations is like doing the same during Most Wanted - or Burnout Paradise, for that matter; the added wrinkle is that they are usable DURING chases - by both racers AND the police.  (That is something the Hot Pursuit reboot SHOULD have had - but sorely lacked; the lack has been fixed!)  However, that also means that Rivals is actually HARDER than any previous police vs. racers NFS - for both the pursuers and the pursued.  (Bouncing off fences, walls, and other obstacles does affect handling - and negatively; this is decidedly new in a Hot Pursuit game; is that another part of the complaints, especially from those that played any, or all, of the previous police vs. racer NFS titles?  Those handling effects - if you are not expecting them - can make completing certain events  - especially Rapid Responses as the police - difficult to impossible, and not JUST due to those nasty time penalties, which are bad enough to deal with.  (Trying to complete my first Rapid Response is, in fact, driving me a bit nutty - again, it's due to the cumulative effects of time penalties and dings/dents affecting cop-car handling.  However, it's realistic; therefore, I refuse to blame the game for it.  It means I have to drive better.)  That is, in fact, a major factor in Rivals' favor/defense - it's more realistic WITHOUT veering too heavily into simulation territory.

 

Weather - like the Hot Pursuit reboot, the weather is a decided factor in areas; in fact, you have weather issues that the HP reboot didn't have (such as "sun showers" - rain out of a partly-cloudy sky; this is something I have experienced in real life - both while driving AND even as a pedestrian - the HP reboot's lack made no sense whatever to me).  There are also still mountains (and the requisite icy roads as a hazard), and desert driving (and not just on Interstate 4, which partly bisects the desert stretch of Redview County, either; there are plenty of higher-speed offroad stretches just begging for a "hot pursuit" or several - parallel to or even crossing I-4 through the Red Desert and the three I-4 interchanges within said desert).  Where you have desert, you also have sandstorms - this showed up during The Run, and it's just as present in the Red Desert stretches, as well.  (Yes, you have to face fog, too - fortunately, it's not so think that you'd think you were in the Highlands - like sandstorms and sun showers, it's equally a problem for racers and cops.)

 

The roads themselves - in addition to the various sections of Interstate 4 that are incomplete, there appear to be be several additional sections of Interstate being built elsewhere in Redview County - the most obvious is a multi-level stack interchange being built with I-4 itself - near the unfinished bridge. Unlike with Hot Pursuit or the PC version of Burnout Paradise, I'm hoping those future Interstates actually get built for - naturally - even hotter pursuits.  (That is, of course, in addition to finishing I-4.)

 

The unfinished bridge (Interstate 4, east of the Red Desert) - while the bridge is not complete, that, naturally, doesn't mean you can't cross it - in either direction..  (I've actually done three chases across the Unfinished Bridge - two of them eastbound, and one west.) (To paraphrased an old saying, "You will believe a police car can fly!")

[Andre S. Veteran]

How different are the the x32 and x64 versions on your hardware?

There is no such thing as "x32". There are 64-bit and 32-bit processor instruction sets. x86-64 (also known as x64 and amd64) is a 64-bit instruction set, which is the successor to x86, a 32-bit instruction set.

 

All that 64-bit computing really means for games is the ability to use essentially boundless amounts of memory - a 32-bit process is limited to 2GB of memory, the limit for 64-bit is so silly as to be practically nonexistent. That, in turn, is a pretty huge change - enabling much larger, more detailed worlds and all sorts of technical advancements.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Again, I'm asking what sort of NFS game do you want?  I've heard similar complaints about all the non-sim NFS titles (including all three Hot Pursuit titles).  If you want a response that is not tied to the wide variety of PC hardware, then you want a console game played on a console; let's face facts - consoles don't vary a whit, while PC game performance varies all over the place because PC hardware varies all over the place.  I'm not saying that it isn't a console port, because it is - however, the only way around that issue (it's far from unique to this game, or any other multi-platform game) is to have it basically target consoles exclusively - and nobody wants that.  Not a single PC-exclusive NFS title has ever performed exactly the same on every PC out there - why anyone expects this one to be any different is beyond me.  Either the performance must vary because the hardware does - or else you are playing on the one hardware platform that doesn't vary at all - a console.  Game development is still a business.

I want a game that's not badly written.

Don't misconstrue what they've done as some sort of performance equalisation or whatever, they can do that without locking the framerate, that they've locked the framerate to the simulation time step is bad programming, nothing else.

[PGHammer]

I want a game that's not badly written.

Don't misconstrue what they've done as some sort of performance equalisation or whatever, they can do that without locking the framerate, that they've locked the framerate to the simulation time step is bad programming, nothing else.

 

Again, how?

 

I'm saying that there has to be an option available programming-wise that does NOT involve basically closing off other platforms - which has been the typical suggestion whenever this issue has come up - it's not a new issue.  The typical suggestion (from critics) involves adding extra programming steps by writing to each platform individually - or cutting off PC development altogether and concentrating ALL resources on console development.  Those same critics are not happy with either of THOSE options, either.  Developers need other options to address the variations especially present among PCs - THIS tactic, while not ideal, is, so far, the most effective way of dealing with the ton of vagarity simply among PCs; due to the new platform that PS4/XB1 have shown, it is, in fact, the LAST remaining difference between console and PC.  (PCs vary tremendously - consoles do not vary much at all.)

 

Further, as I have pointed out, this non-ideal strategem has enabled shooters and arcade racers to actually be playable in the portable space.  In fact, name a AAA shooter OR arcade-type racer that was playable on over one-third of current-generation portable PCs at launch.  I can't do so - in fact, I can't name an NFS title that falls into that category prior to Rivals.  Perfect?  No - however, it has still gone further than any NFS title - or any PC arcade racer, for that matter - to be playable across the widest category of PC hardware.  (Burnout Paradise is the closest approach to the wide-range arcade racer - however, even that was NOT a AAA title; AA, maybe.)  The same is true of Battlefield 4 - it hits the mark better than Crysis 3 did as far as portable PCs go.  I'm not defending the stratagem because it's perfect - it isn't.  I'm defending the use of it for two reasons - it makes economic sense given limited development budgets, and - most importantly - it unshackles gamers from basically having to compete in terms of PC hardware, and, instead, actually concentrate on playing games.  (And as of now, even portable PC owners are no longer second-class citizens in the gaming space.)

[spaceelf]

Honestly I think you gotta be full of crap to defend a 30fps lock.  The only reason I can see it's there is because the Xbox One and PS4 have the same lock, and it's lame as hell either way.

[PGHammer]

There is no such thing as "x32". There are 64-bit and 32-bit processor instruction sets. x86-64 (also known as x64 and amd64) is a 64-bit instruction set, which is the successor to x86, a 32-bit instruction set.

 

All that 64-bit computing really means for games is the ability to use essentially boundless amounts of memory - a 32-bit process is limited to 2GB of memory, the limit for 64-bit is so silly as to be practically nonexistent. That, in turn, is a pretty huge change - enabling much larger, more detailed worlds and all sorts of technical advancements.

I was referring TO that process difference, Andre S. - and what is being done with that process difference merely since the first games that even had the x64 process as an option has ventured rather massively into "kick-me" territory (as in "Why didn't I make this move before?").  The same had been true of even productivity applications, such as Microsoft Office (which has had x64-processing options on Windows since Office 2010) - folks didn't remain using the x32-process version of the suite for reasons OTHER than "plug-in/add-in captivity" - don't take my word for it; go to the Windows and Microsoft Beta forums right here on Neowin and look for yourself.

 

The hardware tipping point was reached in the desktop form-factor with Windows Vista, quirkily enough - and portables have been dragged along with Windows 7 and - like it or not, Windows 8/8.1.  Those x64 processes have reached the point of nearly absolute ubiquity, merely in terms of capability of being usable.  Programmers and developers are, in fact, running out of excuses NOT to use them.

 

Gaming has been, quite literally, THE last bastion of resistance to x64 processes (outside of browser add-ins/plug-ins).  While Battlefield 4 and NFS Rivals are not perfect, both are FAR better than their predecessors, in terms of capability range, and playability in that vastly-expanded capability range - and that is simply comparing the x64 process versions to the x32 process versions of their immediate predecessors. (Let's be honest - could Battlefield 3 OR NFS Most Wanted, The Run, of even the Hot Pursuit reboot be considered portable-PC friendly?  Even with the up-to-date patches?)

[spaceelf]

On that note I just mentioned, The Run started with a 30fps lock also and it was removed in a future patch, so we can hope it'll be the same here.