I use fraps too. I get 50-101 FPS in Freelancer @ 800x600x16 full details. I use to run it at 1024x768 but it would get too slow in fights.

I only have a 800mhz duron(Overclocked to 920)
256mb SDRam pc 133
10 gig HD 5200 rpm
Geforce 2 MX 400 32md SDRam(Overclocked as well)
Soundblaster live

Pretty crappy system but game still looks great and runs smooth. Before I got Directx 9a it would max out at 75 FPS but now it maxes out at 101. It can go much higher then that. On other games ive seen Fraps hit near 300 FPS

I don't count frames, i don't really care I see all i need to and i like it with my GF2 MX 400. if you think my card sucks then ask your parents to buy me a new one.

only think i hate about it is the dang center hud menu is not disableable and the cutscenes are done to death (literaly) how many times i got jumped out of a system gate only to be chewed up before i could react due to a dumba$$ cutscecene we see all the time docking and all i would like to see that disableable too.

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Hmmm, think about that one. X-Wing sure did have textures, otherwise every panel would be one solid color. I don't think a game has been missing textures since SpectreVR.

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Uh, you don't know what you're talking about.

The polygons were diffrent colors.

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat back in the day (way before X-Wing) had green polygons, red, grey, blue, brown....but no textures. This was way before textures.

XWing was the exact same. Nothing had any textures. TIE Fighter kicked it up a notch by tossing in goround shading (pretty sure that's how it's spelled)

Hell, look at Starfox. The SNES cannot handle textures on any polygons, yet Starfox was made up of MANY diffrent colored ones!

BTW. I cound texture as the literal meaning of texture. Something that gives a surface a look, feeling. A flat wall in a FPSthat looks like stone is a stone texture. Green floor with that resembles grass has a rough grass texture. Bump mapping adds to texture. A color is not a texture.

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No funny sig. Deal.

Dillinger is right. There is a distinctive difference.

The oldest raster 3D games used wireframe models, much like vector graphics arcade machines. They were simply raster-drawn rather than vector-drawn.

Later games used filled polygons, single color.

About this time, games split into two paths:

"Doom" style games with 2.5D graphics. These games saved so much horsepower on rendering assumptions that they could use Point-sampled texture-mapping and could use simple sprites to keep the polygon count down.

Fully 3D games that took advantage of the FPU. Games like Tie Fighter and X-wing utilized a technique called Gourad Shading, which is a per-polygon shading technique that can be used to detail the polygon. Texture-mapping required too much horsepower, and could not be added to these already taxing engines.

Later games like Mechwarrior 2, Descent and Privateer 2 used fully-3D engines with texture-mapping, as the computers of the time finally had the horsepower to bring the two features together.

Edited by - defaultuser on 15-04-2003 05:28:57

Ya the original X-wing was just soild colored polygons. Dont get it mixed up with the collectors edition released in 1997 with 16bit textures and other advanced features.

I agree with the original post, the graphics are pretty poor, the models have badly designed textures that compliment the models at all. The ships arent that well designed. If you take a look at I-war for instance and check out the models and lighting in that, its still ahead of freelancer....also, how about eve online, the lighting in that game is superb...even if it has taken four years...im sorry i find hard to believe they didnt look at the textures and think..."hmm, these could do with being updated."

Another thing, im sorry, but i dont get how this game takes four years...the prices dont even vary...how pathetic is that !

for you ppl that are old enuff to remember the first poly game I ever saw was in the arcade called I, Robot back in 1988 or so, it was claimed to be revolutionary at the time. reminded me of starfox sorta. I found MAME on P2P and and going back down memory lane

in I robot u could either play the game, or draw pictures. i thought that was odd.
and man i loved Starfox! been a while!

At the risk of sounding anal, my nitpicky ungrateful attitude doesn't come from the graphics. I thought they were incredible. (system with the neutron star...wow) My problem was with the ship design. I'm a big fan of the Syd Mead era type ships( 2001/2010, blade runner/Aliens) I wanted to see ships somewhat like that. But i guess the exotic designs all make sense, seing as though it takes place so far into the future. Somewhat like Dune's spacecraft apear so strange and unusual.

oh and uh.....PLAY THIEF/ THIEF 2!!!!

Wow... my computer bought the big one due to some fiddling with Freelancer's files. I'm going to recommend that you all be careful...

Anyway... my computer isn't brand new, but it runs everything beautifully. I've got a Radeon... something or other (7200?) (I'm on a laptop that I borrowed from work right now and my computer is still a paperweight until I can scare up an operating system). I got 32 bit texture and 1680x whatever resolution. It's good enough to see that the detail isn't there.

I didn't say that X-wing used textures. I was saying that the game looked a lot cleaner (although that might be hindsight talking). But looking at Tachyon, it was much much cleaner.

To compare, check out these:

Tachyon ships .
Barricuda .
Sabre .

The FL ships just don't seem to be very... visually engaging. That's all I'm saying. Way too much gray out there... and bronze and other mottled colors. Maybe it isn't possible to do more because of the engine.

Edited by - sights0d on 19-04-2003 09:28:59

I'd agree that the graphics are rather dated already. I-War 2 really set the new standard for space sims in terms of graphics, and Freelancer is clearly behind, no doubt due to the unusually long development cycle. The textures are way too low resolution and the models are unimpressive.

However, graphics are not why I play this game anyway, so I just ignore any shortcomings they have. What bothers me much more actually is that the universe feels very flat (well, every station and planet *is* on a 2D plane, which is a stupid simplification in my opinion, even if it'd make the map more complicated to not do it) and the feeling of it being realistic is paper-thin, and the flight model is way too arcadeish, when compared to I-War 2 again.

What probably makes Freelancer so interesting to me is the ability to land on planets and stations and having events take place there (while I would really prefer the Frontier-style realistic planet landings, its lack of character in different locations was annoying, and this is an area where Freelancer really shines). That helps the immersion incredibly. Again in comparison to I-War 2, where the only station to have inside graphics was your own, that's a huge improvement, and something where Freelancer very clearly wins.

I don't want to make this post sound like it's bashing Freelancer. I actually played all the way until 4 AM without a pause last night, because it's so addictive, and I'm definitely loving it. It's just a shame they simplified the flight model and sectors to attract the more arcade-minded players. This game would've been almost perfect if they went the I-War 2 route in those areas, now it's "just" damn good.

I think Freelancers Graphics are very good. The ability for me to run the game at 1600X1200 with full details and the game still runs like silk just amazes me.

I find the graphics fine.

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I think Freelancers Graphics are very good. The ability for me to run the game at 1600X1200 with full details and the game still runs like silk just amazes me.

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Well, this should give you a hint, that the grafiks can´t be that good
Else it would simply not run on your system in such an high res

Still I think the engine is great, it works fine on low end pc´s, looks still great ... btw I think the textures get ALOT cleaner if youe system has about 64mb gfx ram ... the more texture ram, the better the textures

Anyway the gfx are fine for me, though as long as they do not annoy me, I guess every gfx would be fine for me, nothing impressiv sure, but it´s the gameplay thats important ...

Not to beat this issue to death, but I like the graphics just fine. Everything is a trade-off when it comes to graphics. You can have INCREDIBLE amounts of detail but you'll eventually pay the price in framerate. In a game like this, I'll gladly sacrifice some detail for good framerate. Who wants to play a choppy spaceflight game anyway?